The 37-year-old quarterback has just $4 million guaranteed salary remaining on his current contract, which was signed back in 2022.
The Matthew Stafford saga continues.
The Los Angeles Rams are granting Stafford’s camp permission to speak with other teams as the quarterback seeks to restructure his contract once again. According to Over the Cap, Stafford is set to receive $49.6 million in 2025, but has only $4 million in guaranteed money over the final two years of his contract. The contract, signed back in 2022, was restructured last summer as Stafford briefly contemplated retirement following two injury-laden seasons in 2022 and 2023.
Whether or not Stafford will join another team remains to be seen, but it is not entirely out of the question. NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero told “The Rich Eisen Show” on Friday that Stafford’s agent has not been given permission to discuss a trade, but to talk with other organizations about how much they would be willing to pay the QB if he were to be traded out of Los Angeles.
Could Matthew Stafford really end up playing somewhere other than Los Angeles in 2025? When might a decision be made on his #NFL home?#NFLCombine #NFLDraft pic.twitter.com/T4KFvFZHbN
— Rich Eisen Show (@RichEisenShow) February 21, 2025
“My understanding has been that the Rams have been in conversations with his agent, that they’ve also given his agent permission to talk to other clubs just to figure out, ‘Hey, if he became available, if there were a trade, what were the numbers be elsewhere?’” Pelissero said (via RamsWire). “That takes care of multiple things. It takes care of, number one, what Matthew Stafford could get if we got to a trade because you wouldn’t be able to execute a Matthew Stafford trade without having a new deal in place, but also, it gives the Rams an idea, and Stafford an idea of, ‘Hey, we’re going to try to work together. Are we going to be able to work out a contract to keep him in L.A.?’
The responses from the other teams are likely to play a major role in the progression of the negotiation process, giving both sides a better idea of whether Stafford will remain with the Rams in 2025. With Los Angeles announcing plans to trade Cooper Kupp, Stafford may also be gone if he and the Rams reach an impasse.
Stafford started 16 games for Los Angeles in 2024 before resting for Week 18 against the Seattle Seahawks. In his age-36 campaign, Stafford went 340-for-517 passing for 3,762 yards and 20 touchdowns. The Rams won the NFC West to advance to the playoffs for the third time since acquiring Stafford, losing to the Philadelphia Eagles 28-22 in the Divisional Round.
It is too early to tell whether Stafford will still be in Los Angeles in 2025, but once talks begin to heat up, it should be interesting to see where he is expected to land.