Can Rams survive Matthew Stafford’s massive raise in 2024?

Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford may have already been ‘cheap’ for the last time in his career

Perhaps the biggest benefit of the rumored $8 million increase on the 2024 NFL salary cap is that it will make Matthew Stafford’s contract more palatable to swallow for the Los Angeles Rams. But only slightly.

Stafford, who signed a very reasonable four-year, $160 million contract extension after winning the Super Bowl in 2022, is set to see his base salary increase from $1.5 million to $31 million next season. However, the number that matters even more than his salary is the percentage of the salary cap that a player eats up and leaves for everyone else, which in most cases is the franchise quarterback: Stafford’s $20 million cap hit in 2023 was 8.9% of L.A.’s cap last season.

Right now, that number is set to increase to 20%, by far the highest number of Matthew Stafford’s career. What’s clear in his career history, and most franchise quarterbacks, is that teams win more when they take up less.

Even though a $250 million salary cap would move that number down by a small fraction, there is nothing that the Rams or Stafford can do to lower that number other than these two potential outcomes: Restructure the contract to kick his salary into the future, which doesn’t require Stafford’s approval.

Or Stafford goes to the Rams and says, “I’ll take less because I want to win another Super Bowl.”

Something that was addressed last offseason when the Rams said they didn’t approach Stafford about re-doing his deal and the quarterback said that actually yes they did. He refused then, will he refuse now?

Does he need to?

Matthew Stafford’s remaining contract

Matthew Stafford has been an insane bargain to the Rams since L.A. acquired him from Detroit in 2021, making just $20 million, $13.5 million, and $20 million against the salary cap in his first three seasons with the team. He is a bargain no more:

Stafford’s salary cap is $49.5 million in 2024, $50.5 million in 2025, and $49.5 million in 2026.

Though his $40 million AAV is reasonably awesome, the fact is that his “cheap” season is over and now he is the fifth-highest paid QB in the NFL in 2024 after Deshaun Watson, Dak Prescott, Patrick Mahomes, and Kyler Murray. He is also the fifth-highest paid in 2025, although he will move up that list at least one spot after the Broncos release Russell Wilson.

At this point, Matthew Stafford is paid like a top-5 quarterback.

Matthew Stafford’s most expensive seasons

If we set aside his first four years in the NFL, when Stafford’s contract took up less than 8% of the Detroit Lions salary but he was still learning how to be a pro quarterback and the franchise remained mostly in shambles, we see a clear pattern emerge. These are the four times that Stafford made at least 14% of the salary cap in Detroit and the Lions’ record in those seasons:

2013 – 14.7% (7-9)

2016 – 14.4% (9-7) #

2018 – 14.6% (6-10)

2019 – 15.8% (3-12-1*)

*Stafford went 3-4-1, missed rest of season with back injury

# Made playoffs

On average, the team went about 6-10 in those campaigns. We’re not saying that Stafford is to blame—the Lions average record without Stafford, as clearly evidence in the 2019 season when he missed half of the year, might be more like 3-13—we’re just saying that the Lions were worse when he was paid more. Is it that hard to theorize that Detroit struggled to put a better team around him when he was among the highest-paid players in the NFL?

Stafford was the highest-paid QB in the NFL in 2019 ($30.7m cap hit) and the Lions had their worse season since going 2-14 in 2009, which led to them having the number one pick and drafting Stafford.

It is not a knock on Stafford to point out that teams have less money to spend when they have a star who knows what he is worth and wants to be paid that amount. It’s just a fact that if a quarterback or franchise player knowingly takes $10 million less, and trusts the front office to spend it right, that could be a player or two or three who help the team win additional football games.

Maybe when your team is as bad as 3 wins, not even an extra $50 million would help them make the playoffs. Okay, that’s completely fair.

Could a team that went 9-7, as the Lions did in 2016, use $10 million to potentially go 11-5? If Detroit went 11-5 in 2016, then they don’t go on the road as a wild card, they host a first round game as the NFC North champions. Maybe they’re as high as the two-seed that year and they host the Giants, a Ben McAdoo team that got its ass kicked by the Packers in the first round.

A team with an additional $10 million can keep unrestricted and restricted free agents who they really like and have been developing. It can be the difference in not one, but a half-dozen players for your roster to find out, “Do any of these guys make a difference?” Are the Chiefs not grateful that whatever little amount of money they had to spend maybe allowed them to add Mecole Hardman midseason, the player who caught the Super Bowl-winning touchdown? Or to afford kicker Harrison Butker instead of looking for bargain options like the Rams always do?

I know it seems small, but this week’s The O-Line Committee podcast really opened my eyes a little more to these situations as co-host Jeremiah Sirles explained that after long expecting the Vikings to give him the restricted tender of just $1.8 million, they told him “No can do” because they needed every last penny to sign Kirk Cousins as a free agent that year.

Cousins is a good quarterback. Sirles was a utility offensive lineman. I get it, you would rather have Cousins. But also, the Vikings can’t win playoff games with Cousins. That’s proven. What about all the other players that Minnesota hasn’t been able to keep or add because they’re paying Cousins like a top-6 quarterback?

Let’s see what happens in Stafford’s “cheap” seasons.

Stafford’s cheap seasons

Of the seven times that Matthew Stafford mess less than 13% of the salary cap, his team made the playoffs three times, won a Super Bowl, and won an average of eight games.

2014 – 12% (11-5) #

2015 – 12.3% (7-9)

2017 – 9.8% (9-7)

2020 – 9.9% (5-11)

2021 – 10.7% (12-5^) #

2022 – 6.7% (5-12*)

2023 – 8.9% (10-7) #

^ won Super Bowl

*Stafford missed eight games

The difference between six win and eight wins is not insignificant, especially when we’re comparing teams that have the SAME QB. It’s very clear that 2022’s extraordinary discount at 6.7% did nothing to help a helpless Rams team—mistakes like Allen Robinson hurt even more and Stafford was never healthy that year—but what about L.A.’s other two seasons with Stafford?

Making about 9.5% of the salary cap, the Rams a) won a Super Bowl and b) vastly surpassed expectations thanks to a deep roster that included a ton of rookie contracts. Remember, it’s a little bit harder to keep all those $1 million players when you’ve got a quarterback or a single player making 15-20% of the salary cap.

Don’t take this as Matthew Stafford libel, I’m not defaming him. He’s great. He’s just more successful in his career, as most all star franchise players are, when they have deals structured in such a way that the team can sign more players to help him. You could write this same statement about Mahomes, a QB who will see his salary increase to an average of $60 million per year over the next three seasons—$10 million more than even Stafford.

Stafford’s final 3 years of the deal

2024 – 20.1%

2025 – 19.4%

2026 – 17.4%

The final three years of Matthew Stafford’s contract will eat about 18.5% of the cap on average. Some are asking what happens when the Rams restructure the deal to save cap space in 2024: That would mean turning $30 million of his guaranteed 2024 base salary into a signing bonus spread out over the remainder of the contract, including 2024.

Doing this now lowers Stafford’s cap hit to $29.6 million, so instead of 20% of the cap, he would take up about 12% of the cap.

However, his 2025 cap hit now becomes $60 million and his 2026 cap hit now becomes $59 million. The $20 million the Rams save in 2024 means an additional $10 million that they do not have in 2025 and 2026.

Is that worth it or should the Rams just make due with what they have now as stars like Puka Nacua, Kobie Turner, and Kyren Williams are unbelievably cheap?

If L.A.’s kicks Stafford’s money down the road twice, they could always hope to extend him again in 2026, but at that point he will be 38. How long do they expect the road to be?

Can the Rams survive a 20% player?

If Matthew Stafford is elite next season, yes. We just saw Patrick Mahomes win back-to-back Super Bowls making about 16% of the cap, which is unprecedented, and he barely did it. However, Stafford is arguably the best quarterback in the NFC, which in a way is all that Mahomes is except in the AFC: The best QB came out of the AFC. Could the best QB come out of the NFC? Sure.

Especially given how affordable most of L.A.’s other stars are right now.

It’s just a matter of asking whether or not the Rams are good enough to win the division, good enough to win playoff games, good enough to win the NFC, or good enough to win the Super Bowl. What if they are good enough to win playoff games, but not good enough to win the NFC? That additional $10-$20 million could absolutely be the difference between not making the Super Bowl, making the Super Bowl, and/or winning the Super Bowl.

What is Stafford’s goal right now? Is it to make the most money possible towards the potential end of his career or to win a second Super Bowl and cement himself in the Hall of Fame?

Whatever he decides is best for him, I’m not the one who is going to pass judgment. He can do what he wants to do and he’s already proven himself as both a Super Bowl winner and a player who took less so that his team could win more; Stafford didn’t have to accept a contract with $40 million AAV in 2022, he deserved at least $50 million AAV if he wanted to hold the Rams over the fire. He didn’t do that.

That isn’t lost on me, nor should it be lost on fans.

It’ll just be interesting to see how the team and the quarterback proceeds because with the highest payments of his career on the horizon, he needs to also be the best he’s ever been before.