The New York Giants won’t have star quarterback Matthew Stafford under center in 2025. After weeks of speculation that he could be traded, the Rams and Stafford agreed to move forward together.
QB Matthew Stafford is staying with the Rams
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Stafford is no longer on the trade block after agreeing to stay with the Los Angeles Rams:
“LA’s quarterback is back: the Rams and Matthew Stafford reached agreement today on a restructured deal that keeps him in Los Angeles and quashes any and all trade speculation, per sources,” Schefter reported on Friday afternoon. “The first significant off-season QB domino has fallen.”
Raiders & Giants got used by Stafford & Rams in negotiations
Both the Giants and Las Vegas Raiders pushed hard to trade for Stafford over the last week. New York and Vegas negotiated new contracts with Stafford’s representatives in hopes that they could trade for the former Super Bowl champion, then sign him to an extension.
However, Mike Florio of NBC Sports has revealed new information regarding these negotiations, indicating that the Giants and Raiders were simply being used by Stafford and the Rams to find the right contract terms:
“At the end of the day, the Raiders (and to a similar extent the Giants) served as Stafford’s leverage in his effort to get the Rams to give him more money,” Florio reported. Both the Giants and Raiders reportedly offered Stafford a contract worth between $90-100 million in guarantees across two years.
The situation seems similar to the one that Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens went through in 2023. That offseason, the Ravens placed the non-exclusive franchise tag on Jackson, allowing him to negotiate with other teams while keeping him from becoming an unrestricted free agent. Ultimately, this was just a negotiating tactic from the Ravens that would allow another team to set the market for Jackson, rather than Baltimore bidding against themselves.
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Stafford would have been an ideal bridge QB for the Giants
New York has been on the hunt for a top-tier veteran quarterback to lead their talented young roster back to prominence. With the No. 3 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, the Giants have been expected to take either Miami QB Cam Ward or Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders.
However, having a proven Super Bowl champion like Stafford to man the position and establish a culture while either of the top QB prospects develops would have been ideal. The 37-year-old will head back to the Rams having already had two more years left on his existing deal at $23 million and $26M respectively. The restructured contract will likely see him remain with the franchise until retirement.
Stafford is coming off a 2024 campaign where he went for 3,762 passing yards and 20 passing touchdowns with a 65.8 percent completion rate. He remains a reliable gunslinger in the league. The Giants will now shift to pursuing other vets like New York Jets superstar Aaron Rodgers.
