There have been very few quarterbacks better on the stat sheet than Los Angeles Rams signal caller Matthew Stafford through five weeks of the NFL season. Stafford — by a decent margin — leads the league in passing yards with 1,503. Dak Prescott is second with 1,356 and Daniel Jones is third with 1,290. That gives him a near 30 yard per game advantage over any quarterback who has played at least four games.
Stafford is also second in passing touchdowns with 11 to go with only two interceptions and has the seventh-best passer rating in the league. There is a legitimate argument to make for Stafford to be the MVP of the league right now.
However, none of that is on Stafford’s mind. He is simply focused on doing what he needs to do to help the Rams win football games and improve upon the 3-2 record that they have now.
“No, I don’t think too much about that,” Stafford said. “I’m just trying to execute the plays that are called as best I can. Obviously, I’ve had some success through the air early on in the season, trying to do everything I can to just get the ball to the guys that make the plays.
“Then if there are opportunities for me to make a play, buy a little extra time, do something like that, throw something down the field, then those have come to life. I’m not thinking about that surely in the moment. Maybe some other time when I’m done playing this game but no, I’m just trying to get us in the end zone and score as many points as I can.”
If the Rams can get back on the winning track, and stay there, while Stafford continues to put up big numbers that lead the league, perhaps then he’ll feel happy about it. But Stafford has never been one to focus on individual accolades, which is why he made his way to the Rams in the first place.
Winning is always at the top of the mind for the Rams quarterback, and he hopes to continue that, even if he doesn’t have to put up big stats to do so.
Matthew Stafford discusses players dropping ball at 1-yard line
The past two weeks in the NFL have seen players prematurely drop the ball at the one-yard line before reaching the end zone and subsequently cost their teams touchdowns.
In Week 4, Indianapolis Colts wide receiver AD Mitchell let go of the ball before crossing the goal line against the Rams. It wound up being a costly error as the Rams won that game by a final score of 27-20.
Then in Week 5, Arizona Cardinals running back Emari Demercado dropped the ball just before the goal line on what should have been a 76-yard touchdown run. That ended up coming back to haunt the Cardinals as they blew a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter and lost to the previously winless Tennessee Titans.
During a recent episode of SiriusXM’s “Let’s Go!” podcast, Matthew Stafford discussed the recent epidemic of NFL players dropping the ball before reaching the end zone and shared what Rams players do to avoid making this mistake.