Rams' Matthew Stafford Is Biggest Story in NFL Right Now

“And Stafford has an injury history. The Rams are, for me, when we talk about contenders, it's like five or six teams out there; they're one of them. The Rams are one of them, and your quarterback isn't practicing at all?”

McVay provides seismic update

Several hours later on Thursday, Rams head coach Sean McVay provided some major updates to the NFL’s most important storyline.

• The epidural Stafford received this week was prescribed by Dr. Robert Watkins as part of his treatment plan.

• The quarterback will throw during a workout on Saturday before the Rams’ preseason opener against the Cowboys, part of the team’s original plan.

• Stafford will get his first practice reps on Monday at the Rams’ Woodland Hills, Calif., facility. However, he won’t participate in Wednesday’s joint practice with the Chargers in El Segundo, Calif.

• He’ll begin with individual drills during his acclimation period, which begins Saturday, and as he feels more comfortable will eventually join the team periods.

• “As of right now,” McVay said, “everything is on track to be able to get him a good month of work before we end up opening up against the Texans.”

Injury history

Stafford has played and started 222 regular-season NFL games, including the first game after Detroit selected him No. 1 overall in the 2009 draft. He’s missed portions of several seasons but he’s also played through assorted injuries and ailments over his prolific passing career.

After the Super Bowl victory in Los Angeles, he missed eight starts and finished the year on injured reserve (concussion, neck injury). Three years before that, in 2019 with the Lions, Stafford missed eight starts and ended the year on injured reserve with hip and back injuries.

Earlier in his career, Stafford also ended the season on injured reserve in both 2009 (right knee) and 2010 (right shoulder).

“He had a little bit of soreness over the break,” McVay said Thursday, “from the time in between Maui (mandatory minicamp in June) and when we ended up coming back. He was throwing and feeling good, had a little bit of soreness in there, went and got it checked out. And you can't be too smart with these types of things.

“It did show there was a little bit of an aggravated disc. We felt like the best plan of attack would be to do that epidural and then listen to Dr. Watkins, and being able to listen to how Matthew feels. We wanted to err on the side of caution.”

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