{"id":30105,"date":"2025-05-07T04:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T04:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/30105\/"},"modified":"2025-05-07T04:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T04:11:12","slug":"rams-qb-couldve-made-20m-more-elsewhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/30105\/","title":{"rendered":"Rams QB could’ve made $20M more elsewhere"},"content":{"rendered":"

After gauging interest from teams around the NFL this offseason, Matthew Stafford decided to stay with the Los Angeles Rams<\/a> for at least one more year when he agreed to a reworked deal in February. He finally signed his contract last week, which will pay him $26 million more in the next two years than he was slated to make, but he did leave money on the table.<\/p>\n

Just as Sean McVay said earlier this offseason<\/a>, Stafford \u201cmade some sacrifices\u201d to stay with the Rams and the numbers now prove that. According to Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated<\/a>, Stafford walked away from $20 million to remain in L.A., where he signed a two-year deal that will essentially pay him $80 million in 2025 and 2026.<\/p>\n

Both the Raiders<\/a> and Giants<\/a> were willing to pay him at least $100 million in the next two years, had Stafford opted to be traded to either organization. Instead of starting over with a rebuilding franchise, Stafford chose to stay with the team he led to a Super Bowl three years ago.<\/p>\n

O.K., with that established, it\u2019s still significantly less than he could\u2019ve made. With the Raiders and Giants willing to exceed $100 million over the next two years, he walked away from around $20 million stay in California. You can say,\u00a0Well, look how much he\u2019s made already!\u00a0But $20 million is $20 million. And so that makes this a little like the final deals that Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and Tom Brady signed\u2014where those guys took a little less to stay put.<\/p>\n

Stafford has the second-most career earnings of any player in NFL history, making $364 million during his time in the NFL. The only player who\u2019s made more is Aaron Rodgers, who\u2019s earned $381.7 million, according to Over The Cap.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t to say Stafford should be OK taking less money, but it\u2019s clear he prioritized stability and team success over a larger contract. As a 37-year-old quarterback who\u2019s nearing the end of his career, he\u2019d rather chase a Super Bowl over a check, aiming to strengthen his Hall of Fame candidacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After gauging interest from teams around the NFL this offseason, Matthew Stafford decided to stay with the Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2079],"tags":[1635,1586,247,265,240,7,519,523,393,239,1014,58,2444,2611,3310,32,3687,248,267,330,206,56,88,6,245,338,525,424,1636,3686,3307,9,266,3177,524,225],"class_list":{"0":"post-30105","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-rams","8":"tag-aaron","9":"tag-aaron-rodgers","10":"tag-american","11":"tag-american-football","12":"tag-angeles","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-giants","15":"tag-las","16":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","17":"tag-los","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-los-angeles-rams","20":"tag-losangeles","21":"tag-losangelesrams","22":"tag-matthew","23":"tag-matthew-stafford","24":"tag-mcvay","25":"tag-national","26":"tag-national-sports","27":"tag-negative","28":"tag-new","29":"tag-new-york-giants","30":"tag-news","31":"tag-nfl","32":"tag-overall","33":"tag-overall-negative","34":"tag-raiders","35":"tag-rams","36":"tag-rodgers","37":"tag-sean","38":"tag-sean-mcvay","39":"tag-sports","40":"tag-sports-news","41":"tag-stafford","42":"tag-vegas","43":"tag-york"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114464599881914672","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}