Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford needs a bounce back performance from Week 1 as much as anyone on the roster.
Sure, there were plenty of expected contributors who struggled mightily in the opener, from Myles Garrett’s quiet game to nearly zero production from Davante Adams
and plenty of others in between. But nothing may be as concerning as the shaky-at-best start for the reigning NFL MVP.There’s no getting around how poorly Stafford performed last week. He went 15-of-25 passing for merely
155 yards and no touchdowns with an interception. Throw on a generic jersey and change the nameplate, and anyone who follows the league will tell you that’s not the type of quarterback performance you can live with. He didn’t move fluidly, his decision making was iffy, it felt like a shocking departure from who we saw dice up defenses last year.
Obviously, a lot of factors are at play here. He’s another year older, sometimes it takes a while to get your legs back when you don’t play at all in the preseason, then there’s the fact Week 1 is often just a mess. Plus, did you hear about the Rams’ travel plans for the Australia trip? Certainly that hasn’t been beaten to death over the last week.
Whatever the reasoning is, Stafford didn’t cover himself in glory in Week 1, and it’s led to plenty of consternation around the NFL ecosystem, including worries about whether or not we’ve witnessed the beginning of the end for the Super Bowl LVI champion.
You know what would assuage a lot of those concerns? Shredding the New York Giants’ defense on Monday night. And it’s more than fair to think that’s on the table in the Week 2 finale.
The Giants were one of the big winners beyond the basic record ledger in Week 1, thoroughly controlling their game against the Dallas Cowboys and earning some early praise for the start of John Harbaugh’s second act. But look under the hood and you’ll find reasons to believe that the opportunity is there for big quarterbacks performances.
New York has one of the more fearsome groups of young pass rushers in the NFL, headlined by Brian Burns, 2025 third-overall pick Abdul Carter and this year’s fifth-overall pick, Arvell Reese. Despite all that raw talent, the Giants generated just a 33.3% pressure rate in Week 1 according to Next Gen Stats/NFL Pro, which was good for 18th in the NFL last week. Not terrible but not good, either, just fully mediocre. It’s understandable if you’re skeptical still of the Rams’ offensive line, which ranked 22nd in the NFL in Pass Rush Win Rate last week per ESPN, but the early returns don’t indicate anything especially sinister from the New York pass rush.\
What’s more, the Giants’ defense was 28th in EPA/dropback last week and 22nd in dropback success rate. The Cowboys were still able to move the ball in chunks and with consistency against that defense.
If the Rams are fundamentally broken, those numbers don’t mean as much. But it’s far too early for that to be proven true, even if the vibes are low, so to see a team on the schedule that gave up plenty of ground to Dak Prescott a week ago hopefully bodes well for the Rams and Stafford this week.
If Monday night goes poorly for the passing game and the MVP looks progressively more pedestrian, concern levels will predictably and fairly rise. But this is simultaneously a great opportunity for Stafford to quiet the outside noise and the concerns about what his 18th season will look like.
