Matthew Stafford has been called “the quarterback to watch” for the Raiders if the Rams are willing to trade their star quarterback, but there is a lot that needs to happen before the 37-year-old Stafford could potentially be headed to Las Vegas.
Not only would the Raiders and Rams have to agree on compensation for Stafford, but any team willing to trade for Stafford will need to agree to terms on a new contract.
We don’t know exactly what Stafford is looking for in his next deal, but NFL Network’s Peter Schrager confirmed on Monday that Stafford is at least looking for a pay raise. Schrager added that Stafford has a good relationship with Rams head coach Sean McVay, but there is a discrepancy between the sides on Stafford’s value at this stage in his career.
“Those guys actually have a fine relationship,” Schrager said of Stafford and McVay. “There’s nothing that is between them personally. This is a money issue and Matthew Stafford wants to be paid what he thinks he’s worth. He wants to be paid more than $50 million.”
“They’ve given the agent… the freedom to go seek out what might be some teams that would be of interest and what those teams would pay him and guess what? There are teams that are willing to pay him more than what the Rams are currently willing to pay him,” Schrager continued. “The question is, does Stafford want to go to those teams and what are those teams willing to give up?”
For the Raiders, it will be interesting to see what they are willing to invest in a quarterback like Stafford. It seems like a foregone conclusion that Tom Brady and company are interested in Stafford, but would the Raiders be willing to pay him $50 million per year?
Without question, adding Stafford now would be a huge boost to address the Raiders’ quarterback situation ahead of free agency – and even more-so ahead of the draft.
As free agency is concerned, the Raiders will be a more attractive destination for potential free agents with a quarterback in place and if they trade for a quarterback like Stafford, there wouldn’t be as much urgency to take one of the top quarterbacks in the draft.
The Raiders would have to write a huge check to Stafford to get him to Las Vegas, but the good news is the trade compensation might not be as costly as advertised.
Stafford doesn’t have a no-trade clause in his contract so, in theory, he would have to go anywhere the Rams decide to trade him. But because of the size of Stafford’s contract, he doesn’t need a no-trade clause because no team is going to give up drafts picks to a acquire a quarterback with a $49+ million cap number that doesn’t want to play for them.
According to OverTheCap, Stafford has two years remaining on the extension he signed with the Rams in 2022. Those two remaining years give Stafford nearly as much leverage in his (potential) next destination as a trade clause would have.
Stafford’s situation in Los Angeles is not the same scenario as what played out between Derek Carr and the Raiders two years ago, but there are more similarities than what it might seem on the surface.
Stafford isn’t going to sit back and wait to see where the Rams want to trade him and he has no reason to let the Rams drag his (potential) new team into a bidding war.
What that means is the Rams probably aren’t going to get the first round pick they are hoping for in exchange for Stafford.
Teams might be willing to give up a first-round pick for Stafford, but since Stafford is going to have the ability to choose his new team, the Rams won’t have the luxury of getting a premium pick for Stafford if he doesn’t want it to play out that way.
If the Raiders, for example, are the team Stafford decides to play for, they aren’t going have any competition for his services. The Rams can stand firm on their asking price, but the Raiders can simply wait them out.
The Rams can’t sit on a $49.6 million contract and sign Aaron Rodgers or any other quarterback they choose to replace Stafford – and even if they could, how long could they pretend they were going to pay their backup quarterback nearly $50 million?
So while the Rams and NFL media types can speculate about Stafford’s trade value, it probably isn’t going to be relevant in this situation.
If the Rams end up trading Stafford, his new team is almost certainly going to get him for far less than a first-round pick.
x: @raidersbeat
Nobody cares what Peter Schrader thinks of anything!
Now more than ever rhetoric and misinformation rules the world. The degradation of humanity and gullibility to believe whatever swill fits their taste buds becomes fact. Ridiculous.
Stafford is delusional… at 37-38 he is at Best a $40 million QB. To many hits to the head and, of course, his wife spends as much as she yaks….
A big NO to giving up draft capital for a guy that close to 40. Hopefully this is pure speculation by the team “insiderz”!
No way you give up any first , second or third round pick for a 40 year old QB. Matthew Stafford is a great QB but his time has come and gone. The Raiders if they are going to sign a bet at QB should only sign Darnold or Fields or Wilson. And only sign them to a 2 year deal. Draft a rookie QB keep Aiden O’Connell and move on with life.
I wouldn’t waste a draft pick on a QB in this draft. We have too many needs.
We have too many holes to fill to give up any draft capital. We need to find a many starters in the draft as possible. To me, Tom Telisco is the only one in the organization who did his job and got fired anyway. That guy got us 3 starters in the last draft and saved us almost 100 million to use this year on players. Shame on us for firing a guy like that.
You backing Tommy when he could’ve been cherry-picking other practice squads for starters instead of bring in his charger failures that didn’t stick here either. Fluker etc.,
If you want to say who never should’ve been canned it would be Richie and Mayock.