3 concerns about LA Rams QB Matthew Stafford nobody mentions

Faster than a speeding bullet? More powerful than a locomotive? Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?  Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s Superman.  No, it’s not LA Rams’ new quarterback Matthew Stafford. You should have known from the first sentence because Matthew Stafford is not faster than a speeding bullet. He is a throwback pocket passer, a player who will not run to daylight.

Rather, he will shuffle, glide, sidestep, and even duck, but will remain rather fixed in one position and use any number of angles and throwing motions to get the football past the outstretched arms of the defenders and into the hands of his receivers.  Wait… what? One position? Well yes, if you expected a fleet-footed quarterback who can pull the ball down and run for a first down, you are going to be very disappointed.

Matthew Stafford has many very intriguing qualities, many of which appear on the surface to be solid fits with what the LA Rams offensive philosophy is all about. Stafford is a pass-happy quarterback, and Rams head coach Sean McVay is a pass-happy offensive coordinator.  Stafford is almost as gifted as Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes at making the impossible throw.

And Stafford is the comeback King.  Let’s not overlook the thrill of falling behind with only a couple of minutes, and watching the starting quarterback engineer an offensive drive to win the game as time runs out.  While it’s fun to imagine a 17 game season where the LA Rams won’t fall behind, they will. When it happens, it will be great fun to believe that the LA Rams starting quarterback can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

But let’s not put Stafford on a pedestal too quickly.  When free-agent quarterback Tom Brady joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Bucs fell to 7-5 before they began kicking it into high gear with an eight-game winning streak that sent them to a Super Bowl LV victory. There is no reason to expect anything more from Stafford. So what do we mean?

Well, Matthew Stafford is not Superman. Hell, he isn’t even Clark Kent, a man who can flip a switch in a phone booth to become some superhero. He’s good, but he has human limits. Like what? Let’s talk about the topic that nobody is talking about.