Matthew Stafford is the unquestioned leader of the Los Angeles Rams, not only as the quarterback on offense but as a captain in the locker room and on the sidelines. His veteran presence helps everyone on the team, including more experienced players such as Davante Adams.
During his media session on Wednesday, Adams talked about Stafford’s poise and personality during a game, never flinching regardless of what may go wrong on any given Sunday. Adams admits to being emotional during a game but seeing Stafford remain even-keeled – even after a bad interception like the one he threw in Week 2 – helps keep him level-headed, too.
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“He’s the chillest dude,” Adams said. “His whole personality, the way he walks around, the way that he carries himself within a football game, it’s different but it’s awesome. Honestly, it’s fun for me just because things happen over the course of the game and I’m an emotional dude, too. So when I see that sometimes, it reminds me to chill out and take a deep breath and move on to the next play. Anytime your fearless leader can go out there and show you better than he tells you, that’s obviously going to affect the rest of the team.”
Against the Titans on Sunday, Stafford threw an interception just before halftime that led to three points and a deficit for the Rams at the break. Adams noticed how Stafford didn’t let one play bother him for the rest of the game, applauding the way he treated it almost as if it happened in practice.
Stafford admits he slammed his helmet and was visibly frustrated by his mistake but that didn’t affect his teammates.
“Yeah, he must have missed me slam my helmet. But we’ll act like it didn’t happen,” Stafford said after the game, laughing. “No, I was pissed at myself because I mean that’s just the one thing you can’t do. Go three-and-out, punt it back, give them the long field. But it was a heck of a play by Cody Barton, guys in the B gap on the snap of the ball and did a hell of a job escaping out underneath it. I didn’t think he was going to get all the way there and made a great play. Got to give him credit, but yeah only thing to do is keep playing. I can’t just sit there and be pissed about it all day.”
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Stafford has always been calm, cool and collected, even more so at this point in his career with all the experience he’s gathered. That’s not to say he doesn’t still have that fire to win because he certainly does, but the mistakes seem to roll right off him as he moves onto the next play.
This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: Rams’ Davante Adams explains how Matthew Stafford’s poise helps him