With an MVP season in 2025, Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford had a legacy-defining year. He\u2019s no longer just the quarterback that caught lightning in a bottle in 2021, captaining the ship of a Super Bowl-ready team to their ceiling. An MVP season puts Stafford in an elite category of quarterbacks who have won both a Super Bowl and league MVP. His last five seasons with the Rams also put him in the conversation as the franchise\u2019s best.<\/p>\n
From a franchise perspective, the Rams are a bit odd in that, many of their all-time great quarterbacks didn\u2019t play that long for the team. Jim Everett, Roman Gabriel, and Norm Van Brocklin are the only quarterbacks with over 100 games played for the Rams. Both Gabriel and Van Brocklin were traded to the Eagles. Some of the franchise\u2019s best quarterbacks, such as Kurt Warner, only played six seasons with the team.<\/p>\n
While Everett and Marc Bulger have more passing yards and touchdowns with the Rams, the consensus best quarterback in team history tends to be Warner. Warner was with the team for six years, but he only played two full seasons. In those two seasons, Warner won MVP and went to the Super Bowl both times. In 1999, he led the Rams to their first-ever Super Bowl win. Warner didn\u2019t have the longevity with the Rams, but his peak was elite.<\/p>\n
However, by winning MVP, Stafford entered exclusive territory. He became just the fourth quarterback in franchise history to win MVP alongside Warner, Gabriel, and Waterfield. To take that further, Stafford is only one of three quarterbacks alongside Warner and Waterfield to win a championship with the team and win MVP.<\/p>\n
The real question here is how much do you weigh Warner\u2019s second MVP and two Super Bowl appearances? Warner also won Super Bowl MVP in the 23-16 win over the Tennessee Titans. While Stafford arguably should have won Super Bowl MVP, it was ultimately given to Cooper Kupp.<\/p>\n
Statistically, in five seasons, Stafford has been better than Warner. He has almost 5,000 more passing yards and 50 more touchdowns than Warner had with the Rams. With 4,351 yards next season and two touchdown passes, Stafford will become the franchise leader in passing yards and touchdowns. He\u2019ll likely never catch Gabriel\u2019s 74 wins, but one more win will put him above Everett. Stafford also has a 62.1 win percentage which is six percent more than Gabriel, but four percent less than Warner.<\/p>\n
The MVP put Stafford right there with Warner and an argument could be made for both as the franchise\u2019s best. If Stafford ends up as the franchise leader in passing yards and touchdowns, he will almost certainly be the best quarterback in franchise history without much doubt.<\/p>\n
While Stafford may not yet be ahead of Warner in franchise history, he\u2019s certainly ahead of him when you take into account their full careers. By winning MVP, Stafford became just the 15th quarterback all-time with an NFL MVP and Super Bowl title. Additionally, Stafford is sixth all-time in passing yards and seventh in passing touchdowns.<\/p>\n
If Stafford were to play two more years and average 4,000 yards, he would end up third all-time in passing yards behind only Tom Brady and Drew Brees. However, even if next year is his last, he\u2019ll end up inside the top-five and surpass Aaron Rodgers, assuming he retires. It\u2019s unlikely that Stafford ends up inside the top five in touchdown passes as he\u2019s 85 behind Brett Favre. Still, with three next season, he would surpass Philip Rivers and end up sixth.<\/p>\n
That also doesn\u2019t mention that Stafford is just 134 completions away from being top five in passes completed. With two playoff wins, he would tie Drew Brees, Jim Kelly, Kurt Warner, Otto Graham, and Bart Starr with nine. As it stands, if you were to list the top-10 quarterbacks in NFL history, you would start with:<\/p>\n
Tom BradyJoe MontanaPeyton ManningDrew BreesJohn ElwayJohnny UnitasDan MarinoBrett FavreRoger StaubachAaron Rodgers<\/p>\n
On that list, the top-5 are locks. With a Super Bowl and an MVP, does Stafford replace Brett Favre or Dan Marino? Marino was never able to win the big one. While Favre has the longevity, Stafford could still get close to his numbers in fewer years.<\/p>\n
Even as it stands, a serious argument can be made for Stafford as a top-10 quarterback and at minimum, he is likely within the top-15. Over the past five years and since joining the Rams, Stafford has significantly helped his legacy. He\u2019s no longer just a quarterback with numbers. With a Super Bowl, seven playoff wins, and an MVP, he now also has the team and individual accolades to go with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With an MVP season in 2025, Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford had a legacy-defining year. He\u2019s no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":742896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2079],"tags":[7,1014,58,84504,2444,2611,6,424],"class_list":{"0":"post-742895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-rams","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-los-angeles","10":"tag-los-angeles-rams","11":"tag-los-angeles-rams-analysis","12":"tag-losangeles","13":"tag-losangelesrams","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-rams"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116047486864993834","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742895","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=742895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/742896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}