Matthew Stafford is having a hard time getting to know the younger players on his team for various reasons.
According to his wife Kelly, the Los Angeles Rams quarterback is finding it hard to connect with the many rookies and new faces on the Rams roster this year and those youngsters are not making it easy on him.
But he’s like ‘I don’t know how to lead people I have no connection with. I have to somehow find a way to connect with them.’”
On the latest episode of her podcast “The Morning After with Kelly Stafford”, Kelly Stafford stated Matt is seeing a much different locker room this year as compared to previous seasons in the league.
She stated that the younger players would rather be on their phones than talk and have conversations with teammates. Things have gotten so bad that he has had the equipment staff print out a “face book” so that he could remember everyone’s name and make an attempt to get to know them.
“It’s kind of crazy. So Matthew’s been in the league a long time. He’s like ‘The difference in the locker room has changed so significantly.’ They have a lot of rookies on their team, they’re very young. But he’s like ‘I feel like I can’t connect. In the old days, you’d come out of practice, you’d shower, and people would be playing cards, interacting. Who knows what they’re doing but they’re doing something together. Playing ping pong, they have a tournament going on. They’d at least be talking.
But now they get out of practice, and meetings during training camp, and they go straight to their phones. No one looks up from their phones. Matthew’s like ‘I don’t know…Am i the dad? Do I take their phones? What do I do here?’ He’s like ‘I want them to see me not as a coach.’
They say ‘Sir’ to him and shit. He’s like ‘No, we’re on the same level here, we’re both playing in the league. Let me get to know you.’ He said it’s so different and so hard to get to know these guys. He had a book printed out. He had the equipment guy get a book printed of all their faces, and all their names, cause he’s like ‘I need to know their names. We need to talk, so I’m gonna find their names and I’m gonna say ‘Hey so and so how was your weekend?’ So they know I know them and maybe we should get to know each other so there’s chemistry on the field.’
“But i think nowadays it’s really hard to develop that because all these young kids they don’t care. Or it’s not that they don’t care, but they’re so used to going straight to their phones. It’s different. it’s kind of sad.”
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Kelly further noted that Stafford doesn’t know how to lead this team because he can’t connect with those players. Kelly’s podcast co-host asked what Matthew was going to do to fix the issue, but there are no clear solutions.
“We were gonna have the “making the team party” like every year but half our house flooded. It’s hard to know what to do. If he’s like ‘Hey let’s go to dinner,’ okay most of the young guys will come to dinner and then say ‘Ok, let’s go to the club’ and not have conversation at the dinner. It’s way different.
“If I were the Rams, I’d be setting things up all the time. I would set it up so that the players have a box that they can all go to this (Messi) game so that they can hang out. The Lions always had events were good at that. So when you lose or you win, it feels like it doesn’t mean as much because your team isn’t connected like they used to be. I think Matthew feels it the most because he’s so old and like a leader on the team. But he’s like ‘I don’t know how to lead people I have no connection with. I have to somehow find a way to connect with them.’”
Stafford and his Rams crew will need to be one accord if they want to rebound from a terrible 2022 season where they finished in 3rd place in the NFC West with a 5-12 record.
Stafford threw for 2087 yards, 10 touchdowns, and eight interceptions in nine games last season. He missed eight games last season due to injury.
Spending the first 12 years of his career with the Detroit Lions, the 35-year-old made the playoffs just three times with one Pro Bowl nod and a 74-90-1 regular-season record. In just his first season in a Rams uniform, the former No. 1 pick not only led the team to the postseason, but also the second Super Bowl victory in franchise history.
