The Los Angeles Rams have spent much of 2026 managing injuries, and now Matthew Stafford has become the latest name to watch closely.
Stafford was seen leaving the locker room with a bag of ice wrapped to his right arm, a sight that immediately raised eyebrows around a team that has already dealt with absences and nagging issues for key players. The Rams have been without Myles Garrett since Week 1 and have also navigated injuries to Trent McDuffie, Davante Adams and others. Just when they appeared to be trending healthier, their quarterback showed up with a new concern.
Head coach Sean McVay didn’t offer much when asked about Stafford’s arm. He acknowledged the soreness, but stopped short of adding anything beyond that.
“He's had some soreness there,” said McVay. “I think he'd be better equipped once you guys talk to him to answer that. I can't attest to stuff that I'm not necessarily aware of.”
That alone would be enough to keep this on the radar, but the Rams have been down this road before. Stafford dealt with elbow soreness in 2022, and while the team downplayed it at the time, McVay later said, “People forget how big of a deal that was.”
The Rams have tried to manage Stafford’s workload around that history. During OTAs and training camp, he only practiced on certain days. And now, with eight weeks of the season in the books, the concern is less about a single ice bag and more about what it might mean for the offense that has started to show some cracks.
Stafford’s numbers tell part of the story. His 0.08 EPA per pass and 92.6 quarterback rating both rank 15th.
He has also thrown eight interceptions, already matching last season’s total. The bigger issue has been how the passing game has looked.
Stafford hasn’t been as sharp or as consistent as usual, and the Rams have not been getting the same downfield punch.
His average depth of target sits at 7.89 yards, which ranks 16th. That’s not wildly out of line with 2023 and 2024, but the recent trend is more telling. Over the last four weeks, Stafford’s ADOT has dropped to 5.5, which ranks 25th out of 27 quarterbacks.
The intended air yards numbers are even more striking. Over the last four weeks, Stafford has averaged 5.23 intended air yards per pass attempt.
In the previous four weeks, that number was 9.5. He has now gone four straight games averaging under six intended air yards per attempt, something he had only done four times total from Week 2 of the 2024 season to Week 4 of this year.
The low-end game logs are piling up, too. Two of Stafford’s 10 lowest single-game averages in intended air yards per attempt have come this season, and three others came in 2022, when he was also dealing with elbow soreness.
The same pattern shows up in completed air yards. Two of Stafford’s 10 lowest single-game averages in completed air yards per pass attempt have come in the last two weeks.
He averaged 2.2 against the Chargers and 2.1 against the Raiders. Stafford has been under 3.0 completed air yards per pass attempt in each of his last three games, and that had happened only three times total from Week 17 of 2024 to Week 5 of this year.
For now, there’s no indication this is the kind of issue that would keep Stafford off the field. He has a reputation as one of the toughest quarterbacks in the league, and despite the ice on his elbow, it’s unlikely he suddenly appears on the injury report or misses practice.
Still, the Rams may have to adjust. Stafford has thrown 50 or more passes in three straight games this season, and those three outings rank among the five highest single-game passing attempt totals of his career. If the elbow is barking, that could push Los Angeles toward a more balanced approach and a heavier dose of the run game.
It’s possible the soreness and the recent dip in downfield production are unrelated. Regression was always part of the equation.
But when Stafford is icing his throwing arm and the ball is coming out shorter than usual, it’s enough to make the Rams uneasy. The parallels to 2022 are hard to ignore, and even if the full extent of the problem isn’t known yet, there’s clearly reason to keep watching.
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