Sean McVay gave about as honest an answer as he could when someone asked about the bag of ice on Matthew Stafford’s right arm after the Rams defeated the Chargers 24-9 on Sunday.
McVay acknowledged Stafford is experiencing soreness in the arm, with all signs pointing to his elbow as the trouble spot.
How sore? And does Stafford feel it when he reaches back to throw a football? McVay figured the guy with the ice bag could give a better answer.
“You’ll have to talk to him about that,” McVay said Monday. “He’s had some soreness there. 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.”
McVay gave Rams fans no reason to panic. He did, however, leave them with a question they’d much rather have settled after a win their team badly needed.
Is that sore arm something everyone has to worry about the rest of the way?
Put that bag on just about anybody else in the locker room and the conversation probably sticks to the game. Put it on the throwing arm of a 38-year-old quarterback whose team spent the early part of the season digging itself a hole and you start doing the math on how many more Sundays the Rams need that arm to get them through.
Maybe Stafford will tell us it’s the price of doing business. You play quarterback in this league long enough and there are probably things you ice on a Sunday that you forget all about by Wednesday. There’s room for that explanation. There’s also a pretty good reason McVay left it to Stafford to offer it.
The part McVay can speak to is how much flexibility the Rams have to do something about it. That’s where some of those games they let get away are starting to hurt all over again.
Give the Rams a couple of those wins back and imagine the conversation if Stafford were to tell McVay the elbow could use a week. You look at the standings, look at the schedule and at least give some thought to getting him to watch from the sidelines for a Sunday.
Maybe you decide against it. But you can get past the first sentence of the discussion without somebody asking what happens to your playoff chances if you lose.
Good luck having that conversation now. And to be clear, we have no indication Stafford is asking for a Sunday off. The point is how expensive it would be for the Rams to give him one if he needed it. They used up a fair amount of that discretion long before anybody saw the ice bag.
They do, however, have some say in what a Sunday looks like for him. A week before they beat the Chargers, the Rams ran for 198 yards against the Raiders. What stood out that afternoon was how much fun their offensive linemen seemed to be having when everybody in the building knew what was coming and it worked anyway.
No doubt McVay will remember that feeling the next time he’s tempted to put every second-and-8 entirely in Stafford’s hands.
His defense can do the quarterback a favor, too. Get a stop after the Rams kick a field goal. Give McVay’s offense the ball back with a lead and eight minutes to play and see how long those big guys up front can keep it.
A defense that can do that gives its quarterback something awfully valuable come November. He can spend a fourth quarter handing the ball off with the same right arm he otherwise might have to use to throw it 15 times.
There will be a Sunday when beating a good team requires Stafford to throw it 35 or 45 times. Hell, there might be one this week. Nobody who has watched him operate would want McVay taking the ball out of his hands with the game on the line. What ought to concern the Rams is how easily that can become the weekly arrangement when you can’t run it on third-and-2 or get off the field on third-and-8.
For now, McVay gave the ice bag precisely the attention it deserved. Stafford can fill in the rest when he gets to his locker. In the meantime, the Rams have a pretty good question to put to everybody else in that room.
Next Sunday, with a game to win and the ball in Stafford’s right hand, how many of you can give him a good reason to hand it to somebody else?
