DETROIT – Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford is ready for Year 4 with the team.
Asked in his postgame press conference Sunday night if he will be back in 2024, Stafford said "that's my plan right now."
"Yeah, my plan is to be back and you're going to have to deal with me for another year, so have fun with that," Stafford said with a smile.
Stafford completed 25 of 36 pass attempts for 367 yards and 2 touchdowns' in the Rams' Wild Card Round playoff loss to the Lions Sunday night at Ford Field, marking the second-most passing yards in a playoff game in his career. He finished just 13 yards shy of matching that playoff single-game career high.
He completed 326 of 521 pass attempts for 3,965 yards with 24 touchdowns against 11 interceptions while starting all 15 games he played in during the regular season en route to his third Pro Bowl nod. His play post-bye week after returning from a thumb injury had a pivotal role in the Rams going 7-1 and being in position to play a postseason game.
Stafford also became the 11th player in NFL history to eclipse 53,000 career passing yards and also moved into 11th all-time in passing touchdowns in NFL history – passing Fran Tarkenton – with his performance this season.
"A jolt of energy," Stafford said, when asked postgame what he got from the young Rams' roster this year. "Man, it was fun.I had a blast. It was a heck of a challenge, but I got to sit there and push guys, but also watch guys come into their own in this league and it's not an easy thing to do. We got a lot of young guys and not only rookies, but guys who hadn't played a lot of football, but stepped into big time roles and became huge pieces of our team and stars in our league. So proud of those guys and happy to be a part of a team that has a group of guys like that. It takes everybody, right? It takes coaches, it takes trainers, strength staff, everything, to get to these points in the season and came up a little bit short today, but really proud of those guys."
Stafford enters the 2024 season needing 10 passing touchdowns to surpass Eli Manning (366) for 10th-most all-time, and 977 passing yards to pass Manning to move into the Top 10 on the NFL's all-time passing yards list.
