Matthew Stafford has taken a step back in 2022, but that doesn’t mean that he has given up on helping the Los Angeles Rams improve as the season wears on. He has plenty of experience playing the underdog from his time spent with the Detroit Lions, and even as the NFL’s incumbent Super Bowl champion quarterback, he seemed to feel right at home when talking to the media about what he is doing to get back on top in his comments to the press on Wednesday.
Asked if he spends time watching film and preparing for opponents when he is away from the team facilities, Stafford told reporters that his operating procedure is tried and true, though he did not respond directly to the question.
“I think you’ve got to trust the process that’s gotten you here,” Stafford explained. “I’ve been playing this game a long time, had a lot of experience, both good and bad in situations. If you start grasping at straws and thinking this or that or this is going to make you better, a lot of times it’s just continuing to do your process and do it as well as you possibly can, trust that process.
“Then when you get out there on game day, go trust that as well. You can’t be sitting there on game day going, ‘Oh, did I not put the work in? Did I do this? Did I do that?’ You just trust what you know has always worked for you and continue to go out there and play free.”
Clearly, whatever Stafford did last season seemed to work for him, so it shouldn’t necessarily be expected that he change his routine because of a bad five-game stretch. That said, if he continues to struggle against beatable opponents, he will have no choice but to re-evaluate the process he has been following, and adjust it as needed to get the Rams back on top in the NFC West standings.
The offense’s struggles are only partially to blame on Stafford’s play. Injuries to his offensive line have limited his ability to throw the ball with consistent protection and caused him to make desperation throws to get the unit moving downfield. As his linemen return from injury and he gets a better sense of what it will take to succeed with the current crop of talent at his disposal, Stafford should see a mid-season renaissance as Los Angeles works its way into the middle part of their challenging 2022 schedule.
