Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford followed up his Super Bowl championship with an injury-riddled campaign that only saw him play nine games and have just 10 touchdowns compared with eight interceptions. Much of the blame for his struggles went to the offensive line, who had lost Andrew Whitworth to retirement in the offseason prior.
But now, as the Rams prepare for the 2023 season, it seems that Stafford is ready to return as the full-time starter and attempt to bring a young but intriguing Rams team to the postseason after a disappointing Super Bowl defense.
To this day, there haven’t been many details regarding Stafford’s elbow injury that had him hampered from Day 1 last season. However, Whitworth dove into some of the specifics as well as some of the reasons Stafford opted to keep things quiet.
He spoke about Stafford’s injury and his preparation for 2023 on the Rich Eisen Show:
“I think people really don’t understand because he is such a private guy and somebody that would never complain or even ever let you know when he’s going through something. Last year was a really, really tough year. It’s unfortunate he wasn’t on the ‘Quarterback’ series that just came out because it would’ve crazy for people to see just how intense his arm issues and things that were bothering him.”
Whitworth continued and spoke about how Stafford’s training camp was affected last season by not being able to throw with his guys:
“He’s a private guy but I mean, to not throw a football with your guys the entire offseason basically. And then to get into camp and be like, ‘Hey, you can only throw so many balls a day and only so many times a week. To really have zero opportunities as a quarterback to throw passes to receivers and then walk into an NFL game and say, ‘All right, I’m gonna go out here and perform.’ One, you know that your arm is obviously not in a great place in how it’s feeling. And two, just having that ability to throw passes in practice and work at your craft. And that’s what every quarterback does. You see them after practice constantly working on certain things. To not have the ability to do that, man, just the mental state he had to be in of struggling. Like, ‘Hey, I want to go out here and perform. I want to live up to the expectations, but right now, I’m in a situation I can’t.’”
Stafford has fought through a number of significant injuries over the course of his career, so there was no doubt he was going to try to play despite his elbow not being 100%. Prior to last season, Stafford had missed a game in just three of 13 campaigns.
Stafford is healthy now though and looking to get back on track during training camp to help the 2023 Rams get back to where they’d like to be.
Cooper Kupp discusses chemistry building with Stafford
Even though Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp is currently shelved with an injury and his relationship with Stafford is established, the two have continued to work on their chemistry during 2023 training camp.
“So for us it’s like, hey, we know that we’ve got this natural chemistry about how we do things, but man, how much better can we be if we really are honing this thing in, if we’re seeing the field the same way? It’s one thing to run routes on air, it’s another thing to see the field and go see it from his perspective, my perspective, put those things together and be in the right spots at the right time. As we can get that stuff going, keep building on that, that’s when things get really dangerous.”
