Matthew Stafford is playing as good as any QB ever for the Rams

There’s some upside, and the Rams might be better off ignoring him.

A lot can happen from week to week in the NFL – check this out Philadelphia lost to Dallas – That the Rams can’t get comfortable, even with the way they play.

In their last five games, culminating with a 27-point stomp by Tampa Bay on Sunday night, the Rams have outscored opponents in the opening quarter, 63-3.

Matthew Stafford has thrown 27 touchdown passes and no interceptions.

In four of the games in this six-game winning streak, the Rams’ defense has allowed 10 or fewer points.

But it’s uncomfortably early for anyone in the organization to be thinking about Santa Clara in February. The Rams need to play with blinders on. Yes, they have the No. 1 seed in the NFC right now, but they have a one-game lead over the Eagles, who they beat earlier this season, so they have the tiebreaker. There is no room to maneuver.

The glide path is much different from 2021, when they ended up winning the Super Bowl on their home field. That season, they went 0-3 in November games.

This is very similar to 2018, Sean McVay’s second season, when the last game before Thanksgiving was an instant classic at the Coliseum, as Jared Goff and the Rams beat Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, 54-51.

It’s impossible to ignore that we’re watching something special in Stafford, who takes the snap, scans the field and fires a laser of remarkable reliability. It processes at the speed of artificial intelligence.

10 years ago, at Levi’s Stadium, Denver’s second baseman, Peyton Manning, won his second Super Bowl ring and decided to retire.

Could this be Stafford? Second privilege. Possibility of getting a second episode. Then again, Manning’s body was breaking down on him and he wasn’t at the top of his game. These Broncos ran the ball and had great defense.

Right now, Stafford is playing as well as anyone who has ever played the position. He doesn’t look like a 37-year-old guy who came out of training camp with back problems.

His streak of 27 unoptioned touchdown passes, according to Elias, is the longest such streak for any player since play-by-play was first tracked in 1978.

“It’s hard to imagine the fact that you can throw the ball in the end zone that often,” said Rams receiver Davante Adams, who has 12 touchdown receptions this season. “Most quarterbacks can’t throw 27 passes without throwing the ball.”

Stafford is a Most Valuable Player candidate, and this could be the season that secures him a bronze bust in Canton.

As for the hair of him walking off the biggest stage the way Manning did, this is all fantasy football now, especially with more than a quarter of the regular season remaining.

(A slightly premature guess: It’s not out of the question that the Rams and New England Patriots could meet in the Super Bowl for the third time.)

What is irrefutable is that the Rams are continually deepening their foothold in the Los Angeles market. They set their record attendance for the regular season on Sunday night (75,545 tickets distributed), surpassing the mark they set a week earlier with a home game against Seattle.

That’s what Rams owner Stan Kroenke was talking about when he brought the team back in 2016, and when he built SoFi Stadium with the idea of ​​making the nearly 300-acre campus a center of gravity on the West Coast.

Not only is it home to the Rams and Chargers, it’s the stadium’s primary role in the World Cup, the 2028 Olympics and, in early 2027, the second Super Bowl it will host. No matter how you feel about UCLA trying to wriggle out of a Rose Bowl deal, there’s a reason the school turned its attention to SoFi.

Kroenke has always told his development team that falling short of the Los Angeles target would be a huge mistake, and that the opportunity here is immeasurable.

“Sometimes when you’re a real estate developer, I think you have to be very optimistic,” Kroenke told the Los Angeles Times. “You have a lot of problems. … With the NFL, you saw how difficult the whole thing was. So you had to be optimistic.”

“Then you get a night like tonight, and it’s so amazing.”

The stadium was loud and overwhelmingly blue, with only a few Tampa Bay fans present. This is progress.

The danger facing the Rams now is letting their guard down. They travel across the country next weekend to play at Carolina, a team that won four of five not long ago, including an upset of Green Bay.

In his post-game press conference, cornerback Kobe Durant was asked how it felt to have the No. 1 seed in the conference.

“I didn’t know that,” he said, sounding pleasantly surprised. “I’m not keeping up with it.”

Smart answer.