Matthew Stafford’s elbow is the talk of Rams training camp, but the quarterback himself would rather talk about anything other than his right arm.
“You guys want to talk to me about something other than my right arm?” Stafford said after taking seven straight questions about his elbow to start Saturday’s press conference.
It’s hard to blame him for being somewhat annoyed about all the concern and panic about his elbow considering he’s still throwing in practice and on track to be fine for Week 1. He also can’t blame reporters for asking about it because he’s the quarterback of the defending Super Bowl champions and isn’t practicing fully with one month until the season opener.
Stafford is just surprised this injury has gotten as much attention as it has.
“It’s gotten a lot more traction than I would’ve thought, to be honest with you,” he said. “But to be honest, it doesn’t really change my life. I’m just sticking to the plan and trying to get the feeling as good as I possibly can so that I can go out there and play really good football all year.”
Neither Stafford nor Sean McVay seems overly worried about the injury. McVay said he’s sleeping better at night after seeing Stafford throw it “all over the yard” on Saturday. And Stafford simply called it “irritating,” indicating he doesn’t think it’s anything serious or alarming – nor any sort of “condition.”
“I’m just going through something that is irritating at the moment but I’m working through it,” he said. “We got a great plan. I’m feeling stronger every time I come out here and throw. I don’t know if you guys were watching, I felt like I could make any throw I wanted to today. I’m just trying to be smart when I get those opportunities to make sure I can come out here, cut it loose, turn it loose like I did today and go from there.”
Stafford said his arm “felt good” in practice and it sure sounds like he looked good, too. That doesn’t mean his elbow is without soreness, though.
He was asked if his arm gets sore after throwing or if it’s all the time, but he wasn’t very specific with his answer.
“General soreness. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter,” he said.
The good news is Stafford doesn’t believe it’s an injury that gets worse the more he throws. He called it a “balancing act” when it comes to managing the soreness and still getting in work during practice.
And he doesn’t really care whether it’s deemed a baseball injury, as McVay put it, or one that football players also deal with.
“I don’t know if it’s a baseball or a football injury,” he said. “I currently play football and it’s on a football player so I guess it’s a football injury at this point. I’m not really too worried about what it’s called or whether it’s abnormal or not, or whatever. I’m worried about here today. How did I feel? Let’s continue to progress and get better.”
The next time Stafford speaks to the media, he’ll be asked about his elbow again – especially knowing he isn’t expected to throw during team drills for the final three days of training camp. We’ll see what his workload looks like once the Rams begin their regular-season prep, but until then, we’ll just have to trust what Stafford and McVay say when they aren’t worried about it.
