Houston Texans rising superstar quarterback CJ Stroud took the league by storm in his rookie season. Now, he’s opening up about other quarterbacks around the NFL.
Going into last season, some expected the Los Angeles Rams to have a horrid campaign, and there were those who even picked them to finish with the worst record in the NFL.
One reason people were down on them was the fact that quarterback Matthew Stafford was aging and coming off an injury-riddled 2022 campaign.
Never mind that he had led them to the Super Bowl championship the year before that; the thinking outside of the Southland was that he was simply losing his mojo due to wear and tear.
But Stafford had a strong year in which he was named to the Pro Bowl, and the Rams won seven of their last eight regular season games, made the playoffs and nearly upset the Detroit Lions in the wild-card round.
CJ Stroud, the Texans phenom, gushed about Stafford. He even said that if Stafford had been in a situation like what Aaron Rodgers had on the Green Bay Packers, he might have three or four world championship rings by now.
For the first 12 seasons of his career, Stafford was putting up impressive numbers, but he was stuck on a Lions team that was consistently mediocre.
For much of his time there, he had star wide receiver Calvin Johnson by his side, but Detroit wasn’t able to get them much help. Stafford ultimately appeared in just three postseason games with Detroit, losing each one of them.
He finally got his big break when the Lions essentially swapped him for Jared Goff prior to the 2021 season. He joined a Rams team that had wide receiver Cooper Kupp and defensive stalwarts Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey, and they were committed to going all-in on getting a ring that year.
To that end, after giving up three draft picks along with Goff to get Stafford, they traded two more draft picks for Sony Michel, a running back who had won it all with the New England Patriots, and then surrendered two more picks for linebacker Von Miller, a former Super Bowl MVP.
With the deck stacked in his favor, Stafford threw for 4,886 yards and 41 touchdowns in 2021, then added 1,188 yards and nine touchdown passes in four playoff games.
He is now 36 years of age, and if Rodgers has been any proof until he tore his Achilles last year, Stafford could continue to play high-level football into his late 30s.
Los Angeles now has young studs in wide receiver Puka Nucua, running back Kyren Williams and defensive lineman Kobie Turner. It has somehow managed to bring in viable new blood despite mortgaging so many draft picks for one run at the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
It’s exactly what Matthew Stafford needs these days in order to feel youthful and invigorated.
Now, all eyes are on the Houston Texans’ second-year quarterback as he creates his own NFL legacy.
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