Sean McVay Breaks Down Matthew Stafford Contract Dispute, Says Rams Want to Keep QB

The Los Angeles Rams are allowing star quarterback Matthew Stafford to speak to other teams regarding a trade, but head coach Sean McVay clarified that the team wants to keep him around.

“There’s no discrepancy on us wanting him to continue to lead the way and be our quarterback,” McVay said on Fitz and Whit. “The interesting and the challenging dilemma and dynamics within this are, ‘Hey, how do you continuously as a head coach look at the short term and the long term and be able to figure out what does that really look like?’ There is no dispute — and let’s not get it twisted in regarding to anybody wanting him to be our quarterback. Now, there’s layers to it. You have to be able to say, ‘Hey, how do we continuously build? How do we support him? How do we make sure that he’s getting what is his worth relative to those things?’"

McVay added, "The first goal in mind is to have [him] come back here as our quarterback."

Stafford, 37, is set to make $27 million in 2025 but is hoping to get a raise either from Los Angeles or another team. Spotrac projects his market value to be $41.8 million per year.

Stafford is coming off a season in which he had 3,762 passing yards, 20 touchdowns and eight interceptions. It was a decent year, but far from what we've seen from him.

The best case scenario for the Rams would be for Stafford to gauge the market and come back to Los Angeles willing to settle on its price. Whether another team will be willing to outbid the Rams remains to be seen.