Matthew Stafford might play longer than you think
This offseason, there was less speculation about Matthew Stafford’s future and retirement timeline than in previous years, and that could become more of a trend than an outlier despite him being the second-oldest expected starter in the NFL at age 38. Rams fans could be looking forward to at least four more years of Stafford being the oldest starting quarterback in the league. The reasons for him playing until he’s 40 and beyond are growing faster than the grey hairs in his beard. Retirement is a personal decision and could have nothing to do with an ability to play football or make money. Aaron Donald recently emphasized that he always planned to retire after eight seasons and was only enticed to return for two more years because of the Super Bowl. Stafford may want to retire if he wins a second Super Bowl. Or he might want to retire if L.A. does not win the Super Bowl this year. Only he knows the answer. But if he wants to play five more years, it’s hard to believe he lacks the ability to do it.. NFL teams drafted Bryce Young and Cam Ward with the first overall pick in 2023 and 2025 respectively, under the assumption that those quarterbacks would soon become the faces of the NFL. Well, Young and Ward combined to throw 38 touchdown passes in 2025, which is nine fewer than Stafford’s 46 touchdowns en route to winning MVP and also leading the league in passing yards. Ward was only a rookie last year and was not surrounded by much talent. Young is a limited passer who has not proven he can lead a high volume offense, but did take the Panthers to the playoffs at age 24. However, these aren’t outliers. These are examples of a frightening trend of incoming first round quarterbacks proving to be worse than expectations: *benched or in a QB competition in 2026 2019 draft: Kyler Murray*, Daniel Jones 2020 draft: Joe Burrow , Tua Tagovailoa*, Justin Herbert , Jordan Love 2021 draft: Trevor Lawrence , Zach Wilson*, Trey Lance*, Justin Fields*, Mac Jones * 2022 draft: Kenny Pickett * 2023 draft: Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud , Anthony Richardson* 2024 draft: Caleb Williams , Jayden Daniels , Drake Maye , Michael Penix , JJ McCarthy*, Bo Nix 2025 draft: Cam Ward, Jaxson Dart Even in that group of 23 quarterbacks, of the 14 expected starters in Week 1, at least half have a lot to prove before they’re expected to be starters in 2027 and 2028. We saw the lack of belief the league has in young starters late last season when the Indianapolis Colts favored 44-year-old Philip Rivers over any other options that could have been available. His historically-bad athletic limitations were outweighed by the Colts belief in his football IQ and experience. Matthew Stafford is six years younger than Rivers was last season. It’s not that a team would want a 44-year-old quarterback with a weak arm, but this could imply that a 41 or 42-year-old Stafford is far better than the average 25-year-old quarterback. Four of the top-five quarterbacks in passing yards last season were 28 and older: Sam Darnold was the second-youngest at 28 Jared Goff was 31 Dak Prescott was 32 Stafford was 37 Maye was the only outlier and he was a hair from winning MVP. But he was not within a hair of Stafford’s actual value. No offense to Maye and he could be on a trajectory to be unbelievably good next season or 2027, but he was abysmally bad in the playoffs in spite of the Patriots reaching the Super Bowl. Maye was overrated last season and similar to Stroud in 2023, his season-long stats were considerably uplifted by having two or three dominant performances against the worst teams in the league. Maye had 5 touchdowns against the Jets, two more scores than he had in any other game. The NFL’s hope for quarterbacks like Caleb Williams and Maye “proving” that they are about to take over the league because of the seasons and playoff runs they had in 2025 will have to go a lot better than Jayden Daniels’ second season or Stroud’s second season, or they risk becoming [... truncated ...]
