Two weeks into training camp, Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford‘s elbow was acting up. Less than a week before Week One, he’s doing well.
“There won’t be any limitations,” coach Sean McVay told reporters on Sunday regarding Stafford. “He’ll be ready to go.”
McVay added that he has no concerns about Stafford’s elbow or about the ability to manage the situation all year long, and that he’d have “no hesitation” to have Stafford throw the ball 50 to 55 times, if that’s what the game against the Bills requires.
“I think we’ve got a really good plan in place, no different than really last year,” McVay said. “These are things that he was kind of working through in his own way, but you always want to be cognizant of a pitch count if you will. But he’s feeling good. I tell you what, he’s throwing the ball excellent. He feels good. Everything that I’m seeing is reflective of everything he’s saying to me and so I feel really good about that. You can’t look back on the past. It is something that will be very similar to last year so it’s not really anything that’s different. You got a great competitor that you want to be smart about managing guys’ bodies and for a quarterback, their arm is always something that you want to be smart about. That’ll be the same as what we did last year with him.”
Stafford added his two cents on the situation.
“I feel good,” he told reporters on Sunday. “I feel good. I’m ready to go. No limitations.”
He then stopped short of making a potentially significant admission about the situation.
“[I] still think there’s. . . . I don’t know,” Stafford said. “I feel great. I’m ready to go play, can always be better. [I] can I always try to feel like I’m 21 again, I’ll keep trying, but no I feel really good. [I] feel like I can make every throw. I don’t know what else you need to hear from me.”
Frankly, I’d like to hear what he was going to say after “I still think there’s. . . .”
He also said his program for managing the elbow is “kind of week-to-week,” and that he’s been relying on “exercise-type stuff” to help with the situation.
Whatever he has done, it’s worked. But there’s still the unfinished remark after “I still think there’s . . . .” Which makes me still think there’s reason to keep an eye on the situation.