Top Rams players from the 2022 season, No. 13: Matthew Stafford

The 2022 Los Angeles Rams season featured a lot of changing parts. Franchise cornerstone Andrew Whitworth retired after the Super Bowl. 2021 mid-season trade acquisition, Von Miller, went east and joined the Buffalo Bills. Robert Woods was traded to the Tennessee Titans. And Odell Beckham Jr went unsigned as he recovered from an ACL tear. From Week 1, the Rams started losing starters to injuries. This forced new names into more prominent roles.

In continuing the countdown list of the 2022 Los Angeles Rams top 15 individual performers, let’s take a quick look first at the current list.

#15 - Van Jefferson, WR

#14 - Tutu Atwell, WR

For the third time in a row, an offensive player makes the list of Top 15 individual performers…

#13 - Matthew Stafford, QB

There are two sides to the coin for Stafford’s name on the list. One side is that he was clearly a different quarterback in his second year with Los Angeles than his first season. He only tossed 10 touchdowns in nine starts. He threw eight interceptions and lost three fumbles. Stafford only had one game over 300 yards, which was Week 5 at home versus the Dallas Cowboys.

The other side of the coin is that when Matthew Stafford missed the second half of the season, there was a significant drop off quarterback play with John Wolford and Bryce Perkins. Baker Mayfield provided a game or two of quality production but did not have any consistency.

Stafford’s best game came in Week 11 against the New Orleans Saints. Ironically, this was without Cooper Kupp, who suffered a season-ending ankle injury the week before. Stafford actually would end up only playing one half against the Saints before being knocked out of the game because of a spinal cord contusion. In the first half, Stafford was 11/18 for 159 yards and two touchdowns.

Week 2 was also a positive performance for Stafford as he threw three touchdowns against the Atlanta Falcons in a home win. He did telegraph two interceptions to Casey Heyward and Mychal Walker, but the offense had one of its best games of the season scoring 31 points.

Based on his role as the quarterback and fluidity of the offense, Stafford makes the list, but falls outside of the top 10. He finished this year with a 67.0 PFF grade. However, the turnovers were far too frequent and his insistence to only rely on Cooper Kupp elicited his value as the Rams 13th best player.