It’s become clear in recent weeks that almost all of the Los Angeles Rams’ success this season rests on the health of Matthew Stafford.
When Stafford has played, the Rams have had a chance in every game. When the quarterback injured his thumb against the Dallas Cowboys, however, they were blown out and then lost to the mediocre Green Bay Packers the following week.
Stafford was able to return after the Rams’ bye and although the sprained thumb hasn’t been 100% healthy, he has led the Rams to back-to-back division wins to get L.A. back in the playoff mix at 5-6.
Going into the home stretch of the regular season, Stafford revealed that his thumb still isn’t fully healthy although it is getting better each week.
“It’s not all the way back. I’m still having to do what I have to do tape-wise and all that kind of support-wise to get it feeling right,” Stafford said. “But it’s definitely a little bit more streamlined than it was in Seattle, what I’m able to play with. And I think the control is coming back a little bit more able just to kind of fine tune some of those throws at the end as you’re releasing it, being able to change it if you need to. It’s not all the way back, but it’s definitely trending in the right direction.”
Stafford remains hopeful that he will be able to get back to 100% at some point and won’t be playing through the injury for the rest of the year.
“Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, I think so. What is it? Is it four weeks since the Dallas game this weekend coming up? So we’re still – four weeks isn’t that long of a time for what we got going on. I think it can continue to get better.”
Stafford is as tough as they come at the quarterback position and that has been on display the last couple of weeks. He had four touchdown passes in the Week 12 win over the Arizona Cardinals.
Even though he isn’t 100%, Stafford still gives the Rams a chance to win every week so the hope is that he doesn’t suffer any setbacks and continues to improve health-wise with each week.
The Rams recently brought in Carson Wentz to be their backup and while he is an upgrade over Brett Rypien, ideally he is not taking any meaningful snaps for L.A. anytime soon.
