LA Rams QB Stafford is thumbs up after successful off-season surgery

If you think that the LA Rams were shipping off a banged-up quarterback Jared Goff for a veteran quarter who was unscathed in the 2020 NFL season named Matthew Stafford, think again.  In terms of banged-up bodies, I fear it’s the Rams who working with the more injured of the two players. Yes, Goff had a dislocated and broken thumb at the end of the season. But Matthew Stafford recently had thumb surgery, per The Athletic’s Jourdan Rodrigue, and he is recovering from a number of injuries incurred through the course of the 2020 NFL Season.

Let’s see, where to begin? Well, there is the torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in the thumb on his throwing hand. Then there is the torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) In his non-throwing elbow. And finally, there is the torn cartilage on his eighth rib. Of course, there is a left knee injury. Finally, there is the subtalar sprain to his right ankle.

Seriously? This guy is a walking doctoral thesis case-study over sports-related injuries.

"‘“I mean, this past year was bad,” Stafford said. “I had the partially torn UCL in my right thumb, I tore my UCL on my left elbow on the second to last play of the Houston game that nobody knew about, trying to stiff arm a guy. That’s why I started wearing a sleeve on my left arm because I had all sorts of tape underneath it, just to hold it in place. I broke my cartilage on my eighth rib in Green Bay. I also tore something [in the back of] my left knee. And then I had a subtalar, right ankle sprain.”-per Detroit Free Press interview with Mitch Albom"

While the non-throwing injury to his elbow may not impact his football play, the injury will need to be rehabbed to strengthen surrounding muscles.  The rib cartilage is likely completely healed by now, and the right ankle sprain is most likely fully healed by now as well.

So will the Rams will need to protect this guy more than he has been protected in his recent past?

Injured, but durable

But before you walk away thinking that this guy is made of glass, let’s pause and redirect that line of thinking. In his second game played in 2020, LA Rams quarterback John Wolford got clocked by the Seattle Seahawks and was out for the rest of the game. It was a pretty devastating blow to the head, forcing Wolford into concussion protocol, and removing him from availability from the rest of the Seahawks game, and forcing him into ineligible status for the following week’s contest against the Green Bay Packers.

Matthew Stafford endured ten times as many crushing blows and yet did not miss a single game. Thus, the litany of injuries to various body parts. So now the question is, will he be ready to play? The answer to that is yes. He is expected to be fully healed and ready to go when the team is scheduled to begin training camp later this year.

So are the Rams at an elevated risk of injury with Stafford in 2021? Per sportinjurypredictor.com, that risk is pretty low.  While Stafford is 11 percent at risk of injury in 2021, he is expected to miss no more than 0.5 games in the 2021 NFL season.  For comparison purposes, Jared Goff is five percent at risk of injury in the 2021 NFL season.

Stafford may need to use the whirlpool and ice baths more often during the season than the Rams are used to. But the fact remains that Stafford is no more significantly at risk of missing games than Jared Goff was. That is a huge plus for the Rams who emerged with the older, and more battle-tested, player in the trade with the Detroit Lions.