PITTSBURGH — For a brief second Thursday night, you had to wonder what was going through Matthew Stafford’s mind when the Rams used the 13th overall pick in the NFL draft to select Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson.
After all, nothing truly explains your vocational expendability like the day your boss calls you into the office to introduce you to your replacement.
No one is irreplaceable, not even Hall of Fame-caliber quarterbacks. It goes without saying that soon, a Rams staffer will remove Stafford’s name tag from his locker and replace it with someone else’s.
Could be after next season or the one after that. Either way, it’s only a matter of time before the 38-year-old Stafford is no longer the Rams’ starting quarterback.
It’s why they invested their first-round pick in him Thursday. Given the rare access they had to a quarterback they deem a future game-changer, they seized the moment and took advantage.
From Stafford’s perspective, the conflict must be multilayered.
It’s numbing enough knowing you’ll be working alongside, and potentially even helping groom, your replacement.
But also, at this stage of his career and with only one or two more seasons left to win a Super Bowl, he had to think the Rams would enhance those chances by drafting someone who could help that quest.
He has every right to be disappointed right now. Maybe even angry.
But he also has to know the Rams have every right to think about their future without him and plan accordingly. Frankly, if he can’t understand or appreciate that reality, that’s his problem.
Back in the day, the Raiders drafted Kenny Stabler when they still had Daryle Lamonica. Roger Staubach was firmly in place as the Cowboys quarterback when they drafted Danny White. Remember when the 49ers traded for Steve Young when Joe Montana was still in his prime?
The Packers selected Aaron Rodgers when Brett Favre was still their quarterback. Then they drafted Jordan Love while Rodgers was still on the roster.
Not that it wasn’t a bittersweet night for the Rams.
On one hand, they may have fortuitously found a suitable replacement for Stafford long before the situation turned from a looming concern into a full-on emergency. Better to be too early than too late in these predicaments.
On the other hand, it was also a reminder to them that their time with Stafford is coming to a close.
For any long-time Los Angeles sports fan who’s watched Koufax turn into Fernando and then Hershiser and then Kershaw, or West turn into Magic and then Kobe, and so on and so forth, you know exactly what I mean.
The value Stafford brought to the Rams over the last five years is incalculable. They don’t win the Super Bowl without him, nor are they perennial contenders for the Lombardi trophy if he’s not under center.
If it were up to them, they’d turn back the clock to get 10 more years from him. Can you imagine what another decade of Stafford and Sean McVay could produce?
Which is why they used Thursday to proactively address the rapidly approaching day he will no longer be their quarterback. If you think that was done without feeling or regard, then you don’t know Les Snead or McVay or Kevin Demoff or anyone else in the Rams organization who holds Stafford in such high esteem.
But imagine being Stafford, who keeps warding off the end of his career like Andrew Whitworth would do opposing pass rushers. No matter how the body feels, how daunting the off-season preparation might be, or how many steps he may have lost, he keeps laughing in the face of it all.
Only to receive a call from McVay on Thursday informing him that the Rams were drafting his replacement.
Rather than another wide receiver, linebacker, or pass rusher to help him win another Super Bowl.
He’d be less than human if that didn’t sting a little bit.
But remember, this is still his team. And likely for as long as he wants. The supporting cast is as stacked as any in the NFL. And there’s no doubt Snead has a few more tricks up his sleeve on day two and three of the draft.
Don’t be surprised if he reels in a day-one starting wide receiver to provide immediate help.
It doesn’t make what happened on Thursday any less bittersweet.
But even Stafford has to understand the Rams owe it to themselves to plan for their future without him.
