How the LA Rams and Matthew Stafford avoided Doomsday options

It's over. The Los Angeles Rams and veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford strayed apart for a few weeks, but when the moment of truth came to pass, the two sides reconciled rather than opted for different paths. While we have yet to learn the exact details about where the two sides agreed in terms of compensation, NFL rumors have suggested that the team did not attract much in the way of trade compensation. But those same NFL rumors do suggest that Stafford was offered more money to sign with the Las Vegas Raiders or New York Giants.

It seems that while neither team was willing to deal lucratively with the Rams, they were willing to dangle sacks of cash to lure Stafford and his family to lobby hard to be traded. In the end, money truly is not the motivator that some might think. Once a player decides to leave? Sure, money matters. But Matthew Stafford had never made that decision.

In the end, both the team and player navigated an unorthodox effort to determine Stafford's fair market value. Stafford never decided that he wanted to be traded. In fact, both sides had doomsday options at their disposals that would have soured the relationship immediately. Neither Matthew Stafford nor the LA Rams chose to activate those doomsday options. So what were they?

Matthew Stafford did not opt to retire

The LA Rams held all of the cards over Matthew Stafford, on paper. Stafford was under contract with the Rams through 2026, and with an executed contract, he had the option to sit out training camp, and risk his chemistry and readiness to play for the team in 2025. But he had an even more drastic option as his fingertips, one that would not only eliminate any trade scenarios, but cripple the Rams outlook for 2025.

Stafford had the option to retire, a Doomsday option that his former teammate Chase Daniel urged him to take if the Rams offer did not approach an average of $50 million APY:

While retirement can be undone (see veteran safety Eric Weddle who unretired to help Rams wih Super Bowl LVI), it would have pushed the Rams to scramble at finding a starting quarterback at the worst possible time and facing one of the weaker rookie QB classes. The move would certainly have made an emphatic point on the contract negotiations with the Rams front office, but the message would have been more pugilistic than conciliatory.

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LA Rams did not pursue FA quarterback Aaron Rodgers

While the Rams quarterback room is awfully empty with just QB Stetson Bennett returning for 2025 without controversy, the Rams front office stayed the course. That takes a lot of confidence, and perhaps a little bit of blind faith, to accomplish staying the course when hints and innuendos paint a picture of losing ground.

All the while, recently released veteran quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who the Rams had interest in trading for before acquiring Matthew Stafford, was sitting there in the on-deck circle, eager and ready to take a discount to play for the Rams if Stafford was traded. But notice the operative words in that statement: 'If Stafford was traded.'

Some front offices handle the type of negotiations that the Rams just dealt with by using subterfuge and a bit of underhandedness. We know that both the Giants and Raiders were prepared to make Matthew Stafford a very rich man over the next two years, which placed a great deal of public pressure on the Rams front office to get a deal done. But the Rams never countered by leaking how inexpensively they could sign Aaron Rodgers for 2025.

They simply took the high road through it all.

Ultimately, neither the Rams nor Stafford crossed the line in trying to find middle ground, which allowed them to be successful in finding a path back to one another. And the Rams, despite holding Stafford under contract, did not take the hardline approach to forcing him to play at that contract's compensation.

It took time to get there, but the Rams and Stafford can take pride in their handling of what could have been a very contentious negotiation. Ultimately, the two sides found their common ground and goals, independently and simultaneously.

As always, thanks for reading.

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