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Matthew Stafford decided to stick with the Los Angeles Rams despite interest from several other teams over the past few weeks. There may have been a lot of factors that went into Stafford's return, and one of them was Aaron Rodgers, according to Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated.
“One interesting figure in all this: Rams team doctor Neal ElAttrache. The renowned orthopedic surgeon did Aaron Rodgers’s Achilles, and is close with Rodgers,” Breer wrote. “Through that grapevine, Stafford would hear stories of how Rodgers’s appreciation for what he had in Green Bay had grown over the two years he’d been away. Which I’d bet probably brought some grass-isn’t-greener perspective to Stafford’s position in this whole thing.
“Along those lines, as we said Friday, Stafford loves Southern California, and loves playing for McVay, and those two things were the simplest, yet biggest factors. He’s made the playoffs in all three of his healthy years as a Ram, and came close to leading the team to a win in Philly in a snowstorm against the eventual champions. And he did it with a lot of young, ascending players, which means more from Stafford in L.A. may be yet to come.”
It's not shocking that Rodgers would feel like that after leaving the Packers, especially looking at his time with the Jets. Anybody could look at that situation and understand that the grass isn't always greener on the other side, and luckily, Stafford kept that into account.
Matthew Stafford returns to the Rams
The two teams that were interested in Matthew Stafford as he looked for a new contract were the Las Vegas Raiders and the New York Giants. In the end, Stafford decided he wanted to come back to a familiar place and finish what he started, which is not a bad choice.
Stafford has seen success with the Rams and even won a championship, and they seem to be far ahead of the Raiders and Giants. Both of those teams have high draft picks, and it seems like they want to speed up a process that takes a few more years to build. For the Rams, they already have the foundation, and they've been to the postseason the past two years, mainly because of the play of Stafford.
It was going to be hard to try and lure him away from a situation like this, and now the hope is that they can continue to improve their team through free agency and the draft.
