Matthew Stafford's Return from Injury a 'Night and Day' Difference for Rams, HC Says

The Los Angeles Rams went 5-12 last season after star quarterback Matthew Stafford missed the final seven games of the campaign due to injury.

With Stafford healthy enough to participate in this week's minicamp, the Rams expect a better outcome for the team this fall. It's a difference coach Sean McVay called "night and day," ESPN's Dan Greenspan reported.

"I don't think I realized it or anybody, and he would never say it because he's so tough, the amount of pain that he was working through, how limited he was," McVay said. "But to have our quarterback, the command, the way that he really elevates [the team], his communication skills, it's been huge for us. He makes a significant difference."

Even before missing the final two months of the 2022 season, Stafford had battled an elbow issue dating back to 2021 which kept him from participating in last year's minicamp and OTAs.

Stafford underwent a "non-surgical procedure" on his right elbow last summer. Just before the Rams took on the Buffalo Bills in Week 1, Stafford told reporters he had "no limitations" on his throwing arm.

Unfortunately for Los Angeles and Stafford, that was not the only injury the quarterback would suffer that season.

Stafford missed Week 10 against the Arizona Cardinals on November 13 after being put in concussion protocol. That was his first absence since joining the Rams in 2021, and only his ninth game missed since 2011.

He returned for Week 11 at the New Orleans Saints before getting shut down for the rest of the season after suffering a spinal cord contusion, which caused numbness in his legs. Stafford finished the season with 10 passing touchdowns and eight interceptions while throwing for 2,087 yards in nine starts, during which the Rams put up some of the lowest offensive numbers in the NFL.

It was a far way to fall after the Rams' Super Bowl LVI win the year before.

Los Angeles general manager Les Snead said this spring that the team's plan was to build through the draft, per ESPN's Sarah Barshop. The Rams made 14 selections in April. Those included an offensive line addition with guard, center, and tackle experience in TCU's Steve Avila as well as a potential new slot defender in TCU's Tre'Vius Hodges-Tomlinson, who won the 2022 Jim Thorpe Award as the best defensive back in college football.

The team will hope this infusion of young talent, plus the return of a healthy Stafford, will be enough to dig the Rams out of the basement of the NFC this fall.