I had to think on it overnight. But I'm coming to realize that my problem with Stafford is that I want him to take reasonable chances at the right times and there have a been a few games where the team has won in spite of his play and some others where his decision making has directly lead to a loss. Then, yesterday was the first time I felt that Stafford was actually playing scared and that resulted in him tensing up, short arming throws and maybe trying to be too perfect with some others.
QB's know from a very early age that you cannot turn the ball over down near your own end zone. You MUST protect the ball down there. Stafford is no longer playing for a perennial cellar-dweller where taking chances like this was/is the only hope his team had/has to win games. A good team can take a safety, give up 2 points and recover from that. But just chucking the ball up there, blindly, too often leads to bad things and giving up 6 points. A good team can deal starting at their own 5 yard line, running the ball 2 or 3 times and punting to make their opponent at least have to drive the field a bit to score. Stafford IS ON A GOOD TEAM!
I'm not sure how you get Stafford to keep the aggressiveness we all love while asking him to make less aggressive decisions at certain points of any game. But, it needs to be figured out. I don't know if Stafford is checking out of run calls or if McVay isn't making any run calls in these situations. Neither does anyone else. The reality is this is a good team that can overcome some big mistakes against middle of the run NFL teams. But 3 interceptions in a play-off game isn't something that most teams would ever be able to overcome. He's got to play smarter. He's got to take what's there and understand when nothing is there at all and live with that. Some plays will result in the D simply outplaying the O.
Overall, I'm super happy that this team traded to get Stafford. The idea that Stafford and Goff are equal in talent and ability is laughable to me. But, I've seen Stafford make some of the same mistakes that Goff used to make that drove us all crazy from time to time. The difference is that Stafford can and does make plays that Goff can't and never will. If we can get Stafford to reduce the bone-headed decisions by 50% or so, it would make games like yesterday, where the Rams could have won by 17-20 points, a more common thing, even with the factors like injuries, COVID, etc.
Number 9 has to understand when to reel it in a bit. But, I certainly don't want to see him turn into check-down Charlie. Can they find that near perfect mix?
