Rams' Dave Ragone Will Determine Success of Matthew Stafford's Successor

While the ending of Matthew Stafford's career isn't going to happen right now, the day he says goodbye to football in nearer than Rams fans hoped and considering it's highly likely the Rams select Stafford's successor next offseason, making Dave Ragone, the team's quarterbacks coach happy may be the key to a smooth transition.

Ragone, a young and ambitious coach, has worked as an NFL assistant since 2011. A former NFL quarterback and college football standout, Ragone understands quarterback play at a deep level, but considering recent events, it's clear he wants to be a coordinator again sooner rather than later.

Having already served as the Falcons' offensive coordinator from 2021-2023, Ragone got a taste of what his career could become, but with inefficient quarterbacks with little upside led to his departure after Arthur Smith was fired.

Keep in mind that from 2021-2023, the Falcons were using Matt Ryan, Marcus Mariota, and Desmond Ridder as their QB1s so it wasn't a coaching issue.

Sean McVay detailed during OTAs the tremendous job Ragone has done as quarterbacks coach, especially his work with Stetson Bennett.

Bennett missed the 2023 season, so Ragone's work with him in 2024 was the first time Bennett was exposed to NFL-level coaching.

"Yeah, that's a really good question. the first thing is who's the quarterback coach or the coordinator and what's been their rhythm and routine? And, (Quarterbacks Coach) Dave Ragone...I've obviously known Dave for a while, but when you talk about a guy that has such a specific, sequential process for the weekly rhythm for the quarterbacks while also having the necessary flexibility to say, ‘Alright, this is how Matthew's done it, this is how Jimmy's done it," said McVay. "Now I'm really being able to help Stetson continue to develop a rhythm and routine.’ And I think what he does a great job of is he's able to really reach that person with the most experience while also accommodating to somebody that's getting familiar with it."

"But I think it's being able to break it up into segments, similar to how we kind of implement a game plan, and then make sure you don't take anything for granted. I mentioned it earlier, the conversational meetings. You can give all this information guys kind of nod, but unless you force them to give it back to you and then they're able to show it in jog through or some of these walkthrough settings and then in the practice. But I just think Dave does a great job and really I have such trust in him to be able to kind of implement that with those guys."

From what we saw in 2024 to what I saw with Bennett at OTAs, there is a clear improvement to his game, a credit to the work of Bennett and the teachings of Ragone.

Obviously, we'll get a clearer picture during training camp, but the work is there.

Here's the issue. Ragone wants to be a coordinator again. He took an interview for the then-vacant Tampa Bay Buccaneers job.

Ragone's ability to break down football into custom-made lessons, digestible for the players, is what will allow a smooth transition.

The problem is that holding on to Ragone is going to be a hard thing to do. The Rams are constantly getting coaches plucked for coordinator jobs, especially on offense. Even if Mike LaFleur leaves for a head coaching job, opening up a vacancy within the Rams, Ragone and Nate Scheelhaase have made cases that they should get a promotion.

How Sean McVay handles these next several months will be something to watch because if Ragone is as good as McVay says he is and all things point to McVay's words being true, then if the Rams are too good, they'll likely lose him.

If the Rams don't promote him, they might lose him.

It's a tricky situation that is the product of running a well-oiled organization but if the Rams somehow maintain Ragone, whoever the team selects as Stafford's successor will be entering a facility that has that players' best interests at heart with the resources to mold him into the player he could be.

A credit to the work Ragone has done in recent years.