Agent's Take: Why Matthew Stafford has nobody to blame but himself regarding contract impasse with Rams
Matthew Stafford has an uncertain future with the Los Angeles Rams because of his dissatisfaction with his contract. The Rams recently gave Stafford's agent, CAA Football's Jimmy Sexton, permission to talk to other NFL teams to primarily gauge the quarterback's market value since the parties haven't seen eye to eye about his contract for a while. The exercise opens the door for a potential Stafford trade. According to NFL Media's Peter Schrager, Stafford is looking for at least $50 million per year in a renegotiated contract.
Reports of Stafford being unhappy about his contract initially began to surface right around last April's NFL Draft. A Band-Aid approach was taken as a compromise at the start of training camp last July where $5 million was moved from 2025 to 2024. As a part of reducing Stafford's 2025 compensation from $32 million to $27 million, his fully guaranteed $5 million third day of the 2025 league year roster bonus (March 14) went from $5 million to $4 million and the offset language relating to this guarantee was removed. The $10 million guarantee of Stafford's 2025 base salary was also removed. Stafford's 2026 contract year worth an unsecured $31 million stayed the same. With two years remaining on his contract for $58 million, Stafford is underpaid.
Stafford, who recently turned 37, has nobody to blame but himself for his current predicament. He probably had enough leverage to practically name his own price in his 2022 contract extension because the Rams won the Super Bowl during his first season in Los Angeles and the acquisition cost to obtain him from the Detroit Lions in March 2021. The Lions dealt Stafford to the Rams for quarterback Jared Goff, a 2022 first-round pick, a 2023 first-round pick and a 2021 third-round pick.
Instead of fully exploiting his substantial contract leverage, Stafford made a conscious decision to voluntarily leave money on the table in a deal that tied him with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott as the league's fourth-highest-paid player upon signing at $40 million per year. His four-year, $160 million contract extension contained $135 million in guarantees where only $63 million was fully guaranteed at signing.
Stafford didn't get a no-trade clause in his contract either. Quarterbacks among the league's highest-paid players when Stafford signed this deal, who had no-trade clauses, included Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Prescott, Deshaun Watson and Russell Wilson.
Stafford did this knowing that Aaron Rodgers had just reset the pay scale for quarterbacks a few days earlier by becoming the NFL's first $50 million-per-year player. The Green Bay Packers signed Rodgers to a contract that was widely considered to be $150.815 million over three years, averaging $50,271,667 per year, although there were two additional below-market years (2025 and 2026) in the deal. New benchmarks for guaranteed money in football contracts with $150.665 million in total guarantees and $101.515 million fully guaranteed at signing were established.
Stafford should already be on a $50 million-per-year deal. The Rams probably wouldn't have balked if Stafford had been adamant about being at the top of the NFL salary hierarchy on a four-year, $202 million extension, averaging $50.5 million per year, with record-setting guarantees.
The quarterback market started changing days after Stafford signed when the Cleveland Browns surprisingly gave Watson a fully guaranteed five-year, $230 million deal, averaging $46 million per year, in connection with his trade from the Houston Texas despite there being four years left on his contract.
There are currently nine quarterbacks with deals averaging $50 million per year or more ranging from Prescott's $60 million per year with the Cowboys to Jalen Hurts' $51 million per year from the Super Bowl LIX champion Philadelphia Eagles. Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence and Jordan Love are right behind Prescott on the quarterback salary totem pole with $55 million-per-year deals, respectively, from the Cincinnati Bengals, Jacksonville Jaguars and Packers. Next are Tua Tagovailoa's, Goff's, Justin Herbert's and Lamar Jackson's respective $53.1 million, $53 million, $52.5 million and $52 million annual deals with the Miami Dolphins, Lions, Los Angeles Chargers and Baltimore Ravens.
Stafford is currently the NFL's 15th-highest-paid player at $40 million per year. This is with a couple of subtractions from the upper end of the quarterback market. Rodgers dropped out of the $50 million-per-year club when he unexpectedly took a hefty pay cut to allow the New York Jets to build a more competitive roster after his 2023 trade from the Packers. The Denver Broncos released Wilson last March from the five-year, $245 million extension, averaging $49 million per year he signed in August 2022. The New York Giants cut bait with Daniel Jones 10 games into the 2024 season. Jones had signed a four-year, $160 million contract, averaging $40 million per year, that was worth up to $195 million thanks to incentives and salary escalators in March 2023.
Additional quarterbacks could exceed the $50 million-per-year mark before the 2025 regular season starts. Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane hasn't ruled out a new deal for Allen although he has four years remaining on his contract. Winning the 2024 NFL MVP award gives Allen enough ammunition to replace Prescott as the NFL's highest-paid player if he gets a new deal. The San Francisco 49ers are going to have a hard time holding the line financially with Brock Purdy, who is in a contract year, when an inexperienced Jimmy Garoppolo briefly became the league's highest-paid player in 2018 after just a handful of good starts, following his midseason trade from the New England Patriots several months earlier.
It would be an entirely different dynamic than Stafford is facing if he had driven a hard bargain in the 2022 negotiations. The current contract drama between Stafford and the Rams wouldn't exist.
Assuming the cash-flow percentages of the 2022 extension, which are strong, would have been replicated in a $50.5 million-per-year deal, Stafford wouldn't have a good justification to demand more money. Having 41.25% and 60.63% of the new money through the second and third new contract years would essentially equate to $122.5 million and $163 million at these respective junctures of the deal.
Averaging $54,333,333 per year through the first three new contract years, which run through 2025, would have put Stafford on par with Tagovailoa. Stafford would be ahead of Herbert, Jackson and Hurts, who are at $53,333,333, $52 million and $51 million per year after the first three new contract years.
Since Stafford is considered a top-10 quarterback, releasing or trading him wouldn't have been a realistic way to contend with a 2025 salary cap number that probably would have been in excess of $60 million. Trading Stafford would have required him waiving his no-trade clause anyway. Carrying Stafford at such an exorbitant cap number or restructuring Stafford's contract for cap purposes would have been the most likely course of action.
Hometown discounts don't payTaking a hometown discount seems to work better in theory than in practice for most players. Drew Brees probably had the leverage to become the NFL's first $30 million-per-year player on a short-term deal when he chose to give the New Orleans Saints a financial break for the first time during numerous contract dealings with the franchise in 2018 as a 39-year-old to try to maximize his opportunity to get a second Super Bowl ring. He retired in 2021 as a one-time Super Bowl champion.
Rodgers reducing his 2023 and 2024 compensation by $33.765 million after his trade to the Jets didn't translate to the won-loss column. He is going to be released with a post-June 1 designation once the 2025 league year starts on March 12.
Even Tom Brady, who is the poster boy for taking hometown discounts, eventually wanted more money because of changing market conditions. In 2018, $5 million of incentives were added to Brady's contract to placate him. Brady got an $8 million raise in 2019, which was his contract year, when he was 42. The New England Patriots also added language to Brady's contract preventing a franchise or transition tag from being used on him.
In all fairness, Brady is the exception. When he started leaving money on the table instead of driving the quarterback market in 2013 as a 35-year-old, 13-year NFL veteran, the Patriots were able to assemble a more talented roster than would have been possible otherwise. The Patriots won the Super Bowl twice in three appearances after Brady started taking below-market deals.
I suspect that if Stafford could go back in time, he would have gotten as much money as possible from the Rams in 2022. For Stafford, it seems to be a case of no good deed goes unpunished given the Rams' strong reluctance to meet his contract demands and his possible departure from Los Angeles.
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