Maybe the Rams were open to trading Matthew Stafford, but he’s the QB L.A. has

The Los Angeles Rams were open to trading Matthew Stafford, that seems true now, otherwise where could all these articles be coming from? The Rams probably were open to the idea of trading their Super Bowl-winning quarterback and I do realize that some may question of honesty of Kevin Demoff, but the Rams Chief Operating Officer did recently say:

“He is a pillar, we value him highly,” he said of Stafford. “Now, again, if someone did come in offering a ridiculous trade package, I think you owe it to your organization to listen the same way you would anyone. I think Les said people called about nine players during the offseason. That’s grown probably since that time.”

That tells me that the trading of Stafford had been discussed. Was it discussed realistically? I don’t know, apparently not, or a deal didn’t work out thus the conversations of course were never very serious. The NFL is a results oriented business. You win or you lose. You get traded or you don’t. You sign Sean McVay and he changes the entire direction of your franchise, or you don’t.

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Now can Matthew Stafford be traded in the future?

Let’s ask Mr. Demoff:

“Those conversations frustrated me because I think it’s trying to inject narratives that aren’t there,” Demoff said. “I know there are reports that we tried to trade Matthew. We were not actively trying to trade Matthew. I know Les has rebuffed that before. It’s just not the case. I think if you wanted to be in the reality of the NFL, there are 10 teams this year, at least, that are going to have different quarterbacks. We were obviously aggressive in remaking our roster in March. It would be naive to think that people didn’t inquire about what was going to happen with the player who the year before won the Super Bowl. It’s different than whether people inquire, whether there are casual conversations.”

Right, we don’t know what conversations were “real” and which conversations took place in The Upside Down and thus those conversations are unreal and or not real. Teams may have inquired about Matthew Stafford and apparently the Rams took those calls. That seems a little real to me.

Does it matter?

Until Stafford is traded or retires then no, these conversations don’t really matter to me. Teams inquire about players all the time. Teams listen to those inquiries. They should, that all makes sense.

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Even knowing all that (that this is all standard procedure) any time a team maybe inquires about a player, especially a quarterback, then it’s going to be news. I feel like the Russell Wilson trade rumors went on every offseason until he was finally traded. I admit all that drama did eventually lead to one of my favorite tweets of all time:

Wilson was eventually traded to the Denver Broncos. I remember one time I went to bed and Jared Goff was the Rams quarterback and I woke in the middle of the night (I can’t really remember but I think that’s how it happened) and Matthew Stafford was then the Rams quarterback. I thought that came out of nowhere. Point being until a trade is made what does it matter? We really do not know what an NFL team is going to do until they do it. Until something happens it’s all rumors and speculation.

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It’s fun to speculate so perhaps I am being too cynical here, but the topic of trading Stafford really is nothing new. After all, the Detroit Lions traded the quarterback to the Rams not that long ago. I can’t remember how it all ended up after they traded him though. Maybe because his story in L.A. is still being written.

We will see what happens. The Rams didn’t have many financially logistical opportunities to move Stafford before the 2023 NFL Draft and they have a greater chance to do it now and attempt to send his contract (including his $31 million fully guaranteed salary in 2024) to a team that could become desperate at quarterback if someone gets injured in return for valuable draft picks. We think we know who all 32 starting quarterbacks are headed into the season, but if we know anything it’s that there will be a lot of changes at quarterback this year.

We will see which quarterbacks gets moved, and it’s always going to be exciting. At the same time for right now Stafford is a Ram and we’ll see what he can do with the team until that changes.

That matters to me right now more than the rumors do.