The Los Angeles Rams have had a tremendous string of seasons since swapping Jared Goff for Matthew Stafford. With the genius of head coach Sean McVay and Stafford’s elite talent, the team has been a perennial playoff lock.
A Super Bowl appearance and multiple deep playoff runs only further sell the Rams as a consistently excellent franchise. However, LA’s run at the top might be coming to an end, and it’s all thanks to Tom Brady. But for one NFL analyst, Brady’s methods are far from morally correct.
NFL Analyst Rips Tom Brady for Recruitment Tactics of Matthew Stafford
Right around the Super Bowl, the first domino to fall for Los Angeles was superstar wide receiver Cooper Kupp announcing the team’s decision to find a trade for him on X. This after a season where Stafford leaving LA was a hot rumor topic seems to be signaling the end of the current iteration of the team.
But then, Brady, who’s now the owner and man in charge of the Las Vegas Raiders, meeting with Stafford on a yacht in Montana certainly drew some eyeballs. But for Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, the move is outright wrong.
To Florio, the entire situation is wrong, and Brady’s meddling tactics don’t go in line with the NFL. He’s even asked the league and the Rams about how they’re going to tackle the situation, but to no avail. Nevertheless, undeterred, Florio launched an attack on the seven-time Super Bowl champion.
“They’re going to look the other way this time. But what are you going to do next time? What’s going to happen? He’s going to keep doing it. And this isn’t some big anti-Tom Brady thing. I just think they have allowed a situation where they have someone with a history (in the NFL’s mind) of cheating.”
Yet, with Brady’s current position, it might become difficult to enforce restrictions on him.
“You’ve put him in a position where he’s on the honor system. A man that you decided has no honor, at least as it relates to deflating footballs, you’ve put him in a position where he’s operating on the honor system.”
Florio believes that a Raiders team that won four games and isn’t immediately positioned to be excellent wouldn’t be a suitable landing spot for a 37-year-old Stafford. Unless, of course, he had that 1-on-1 meeting with Brady.
“The Rams should be p*****. Because when you look at it in isolation, without the opportunity for Tom Brady to meet face to face and have the conversation with Matthew Stafford, why the hell would Matthew Stafford want to go to the Raiders?”
But, with Brady getting to make that pitch to Stafford, and drawing on the experience of playing against a legendary head coach like Pete Carroll, it could sway Stafford’s opinion — something the Rams could not have prepared for.
“The Rams never contemplated that he’d be in his living room with the fire crackling and the big a** moose head up hanging over the fireplace. That’s a different game, and that erodes the Rams’ ability to keep him.”
Finally, the meddling from Brady could bring an end to Stafford’s tenure in Los Angeles, even if the team wants to keep him around for a while longer.
“And that is why, if I’m the Rams, I’m freakin’ p***** right now.”