Not even two years ago, the Los Angeles Rams were hoisting the Lombardi Trophy after defeating the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI. Led by Matthew Stafford, Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp, the Rams reached the top of the football world.
Unfortunately, the follow-up season didn’t go the way anyone hoped as the team was ravaged due to injuries with the ones to Kupp and Stafford, in particular, tanking the offense. Now after parting ways with a number of big-name players this offseason, expectations surrounding the Rams are much lower than they were a year ago.
But those expectations of the Rams not being great mean absolutely nothing to Stafford as he is simply focused on his teammates in the locker room and putting in the work.
“I don’t pay too much attention to it,” Stafford said recently. “I know what we’re trying to do is build a really good football team here and that takes work. Whether people think it’s going to happen or not doesn’t matter to us. Just because people said we should win the Super Bowl two years ago didn’t mean we won it. We put the work in and executed. So that’s the mindset that we’re taking and happy to be where we’re at.”
As Stafford noted, at the end of the day it is about putting in the work and executing. That is something the Rams did on their way to a Super Bowl and it is what they plan to do this season. But there remains a number of questions in regards to whether they can compete with the NFL’s elite this year.
Stafford and Kupp being healthy will go a long ways towards helping the offense and Aaron Donald remains arguably the best defensive player in football. But replacing the likes of Leonard Floyd, Jalen Ramsey and Bobby Wagner on the defense will not be easy as the Rams’ spending over the past few years finally caught up to them and caused them to make some tough decisions in letting guys go.
Being in a division with one of the Super Bowl favorites in the San Francisco 49ers as well as a very good Seattle Seahawks team who made the playoffs last year doesn’t make things any easier for the Rams. But that isn’t what Stafford is focused on.
Stafford is all about everyone who is inside the Rams locker room and making sure that they all give everything they got to the team’s success this season.
