by Paul Teetor
Super Bowl champion. Pro Bowler. Sixth all-time in passing yards and completions. Seventh in passing touchdowns.
Now Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford has added another title to his long list of honors: Most Valuable Player of the National Football League.
There were plenty of other seasons in his 17-year career when he could have won it, most notably the year he led the Rams to the Super Bowl title in 2021. But somehow, he was always edged out.
Even better, while accepting the award during Thursday’s NFL Honors ceremony in San Francisco, he announced that he will be returning for an 18th season.
Stafford brought his four young daughters – all dressed in identical black-and-white dresses – to the stage to accept the award at the NFL Honors show, then closed his speech with the news of his return.
“I’ll see you guys next year,” Stafford said, well aware that the 2027 Super Bowl will be played at SoFi Stadium. “Hopefully I’m not at this event and we’re preparing for another game at SoFi.”
Stafford edged New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye in the closest MVP race since Peyton Manning and Steve McNair were co-winners in 2003. Stafford, who became the third-oldest player to win the award, behind Tom Brady (2017) and Aaron Rodgers (2021), received 24 of 50 first-place votes while Maye got 23 from a panel of media members coordinated by the Associated Press.
Following the Rams’ NFC championship game loss to the Seattle Seahawks, Stafford declined to answer questions about his future. Rams head coach Sean McVay and general manager Les Snead said this week that the franchise will wait and allow Stafford the time he needs to make the decision on his future.
Stafford, who turned 38 on Saturday, wants another opportunity to win his second Super Bowl ring with the Rams.
“Oh yeah, I’ll be back. It was such an amazing season and I play with a great group of guys and coaches. I was lucky enough to finish this season healthy, and I wanna make sure that I go out there and see what happens next year,” Stafford told the Associated Press.
First-place votes were worth 10 points. Second- through fifth-place votes were worth 5, 3, 2 and 1 points. Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, the 2024 NFL MVP, received two first-place MVP votes, and Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert got the other one.
Stafford finished with 366 points to Maye’s 361. Allen placed third with 91 points, San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (71) was fourth and Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence (49) came in fifth.
The AP also named Stafford to its All-Pro first team this season, another first for his career. He was also named MVP and first-team All-NFL by the Pro Football Writers of America.
As far as that unwatchable slog of a Super Bowl that was such a snooze-fest it put everyone to sleep after Bad Bunny’s spicy halftime show, there’s not much left to say. All Ball wrote two weeks ago – after the Seahawks beat the Rams 31-27 in the thrilling NFC title game — that Seattle and the Rams were the two best teams in the NFL. We stand by those words and could only imagine how great a game the Super Bowl could have been had they played the Rams instead of the not-ready-for-prime-time Patriots.
See you next year at SoFi Stadium.
The Clippers finally do something smart
After a decade of making one bad decision after another, the LA Clippers finally did something right this week: they dumped a 36-year-old, rapidly aging, chronically complaining, me-first diva in exchange for a two-time All Star who is 10 years younger with a team-first attitude.
Trading point guard James Harden to the Cleveland Cavaliers for their point guard Darius Garland straight up – a rare player for player trade — was the right move for the Clippers’ present, and more important, for the team’s future.
At least this woe-begone team now has a future, something it didn’t have as recently as last week.
Last week it looked like the Clippers were going to ride into the future with Harden and soon-to-be 35-year-old Kawhi Leonard as they slowly sank to the bottom of the western conference standings.
But now the superstar trio — Harden, Paul George and Kawhi Leonard — that not-so-long-ago was supposed to lead the Clippers to at least the NBA Finals and hopefully to an NBA title, is now down to one: Leonard, who has one more year at $50 million remaining on his contract.
And after next season, they almost certainly will wash their hands of Leonard — a great player who is almost always hurt and rarely plays – and start fresh with a young roster led by Garland.
But this is still the Clippers, so they really don’t deserve too much credit for making this smart trade. The truth is that Harden forced it on them. When the Clippers told him they wouldn’t give him another two-year extension on his already bloated contract, Harden suddenly announced that he wanted out of LA or else he would be a very unhappy player.
And when James Harden announces that he could quickly become unhappy you listen and you act. He had already forced his way out of Houston, Brooklyn and Philadelphia in the last seven years, and the Clippers knew it could get ugly very quickly if they didn’t get him out of town.
Sudden mysterious injuries, no-shows at practices and even games, public complaining in the local media, making even less effort on defense than he normally does – Harden knows all the tricks of the modern athlete who wants a change of scenery and is willing to do whatever it takes to get it.
So with the February 5 trade deadline fast approaching, the Clippers gave Harden and his agent permission to go out and seek a trade and soon the future Hall of Famer had the Cleveland Cavaliers on the phone, offering the Clippers Garland for Harden.
The whole trade was done in 24 hours, with both teams thinking they had won the trade. The Clippers because they now had their point guard of the future and the Cavaliers because Harden fits better alongside their superstar, Donovan Mitchell, for a team in win-now mode.
The Cavs now have two future Hall of Famers in their backcourt in Mitchell and Harden, an All-Star center in former USC star Evan Mobley, and another quality big man in power forward Jarrett Allen.
That leaves one starting spot, the small forward position, that could be filled by another future Hall of Famer like LeBron James, as detailed in last week’s column.
Despite several All Ball readers emailing to say that the Harden trade now makes a LeBron James move to Cleveland less likely than it looked last week, the reality is just the opposite: it’s now even more likely.
LeBron is so secure in his greatness that he doesn’t need subservient players on his team. Indeed, his history shows that he will always be drawn to playing with other great players. Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love in Cleveland, and Anthony Davis and even Luka Doncic in LA all loved playing with LeBron. A natural passer and facilitator at heart, he’s more than willing to share the ball and the glory.
Then, as if Harden’s trade had forced them to admit the reality that this year’s team was going nowhere in the short and mid-term future, the Clips made another smart move a half-hour before the trade deadline: they traded the second most valuable player on their team for a real haul of players and assets.
They traded Ivica Zubac, the best defensive center in the league, to the Indiana Pacers for a loaded package, including young, uber-athletic guard Benedict Mathurin, high-flying center Isaiah Jackson, a 2029 unprotected first-round pick, a 2028 second-round pick, and a protected 2026 first-round pick.
For the Clippers, this was an incredible return on investment and one of the few times in their long history that they got over on their crosstown rivals, the Lakers.
The Lakers traded Zubac to the Clippers seven years ago when he was just 21 years old for a washed-up veteran big man named Mike Muscala. The 7-foot Zubac quickly developed into the best defensive center in the league, a shot-blocking, rebounding monster. Muscala played a few games in the purple and gold uniform and was never heard from again.
All in all, it was the best week for the Clippers since they got rid of their cheap, racist and incompetent owner, Donald Sterling, after he was caught on video making racist remarks about his own players.
Now the Clippers can finally look to the future.
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com.
