expect to see you here.”

Right. Who accidentally runs into someone at a ski resort in Montana?

What this all means? This is the NFL’s Silly Season, and Stafford, who is still under contract to the Rams, restructured his contract to the team’s benefit last season to enable the club to get what it needed to get done under the cap and would like to make up some of that money this time. The Rams have agreed to allow Stafford to test the market and see what his actual worth at this point in his career, at age 37, would be.

(My estimate: High. Really high. He almost brought a team that started 1-4 back to the Super Bowl, because he was one pass completion away from overcoming the Eagles, in the snow in Philadelphia, in the NFC Divisional Round.)

Other reports have the New York Giants, Cleveland and Pittsburgh showing significant interest, which isn’t surprising. Meanwhile, there are hard deadlines coming in this saga, according to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer. Stafford is due a base salary of $23 million in 2025, and a $4 million roster bonus is due by March 14. The NFL’s “legal tampering period” — love that term — begins March 10, and the league business year officially begins March 12. So by then we almost certainly will have clarity.

My take? The Rams’ granting of permission for Stafford to test the market is a calculated gamble, but a gamble nonetheless. They need him; Sean McVay has admitted as much, and losing him would mean going back into the quarterback market, unless you believe Jimmy Garoppolo is a worthy successor. (I don’t.)

Mirjam, what would you say the chances are that this ends well for the Rams?

Mirjam Swanson:

Hmm. 50-50? Optimistically?

It does feel like a band you love on the verge of breaking up. All that beautiful music condemned, once again, by creative differences — er, financial differences. But maybe some creative, too? The Rams have let it be known they’re removing Stafford’s favorite collaborator, Cooper Kupp, from the ensemble, and it doesn’t seem like the quarterback is a fan.

My husband was in a rock band once and I’ll never forget something his bassist — shoutout Omar — joked when news of a buddy’s group dissolved: “It’s music, of course it ended badly.”

Seems the case quite often when players go taking hometown discounts like Stafford did in 2022 after the Rams won the Super Bowl. I guess when you’re 34 and rolling, the future seems bright, you dig the idea of running it all back and the vibes are so great you want to believe your team will do right by you down the road.

And then, three years later, you look up and you’re still a top-10 quarterback, but you’re not being paid like it, and you’d like to be. Sure, you’ve already earned close to $365 million, but there aren’t many more paydays ahead, so you’d like to wring as much compensation out of this incredibly physically taxing job as you can before you retire. And your wife would like you to, too — “I love the city of L.A.,” Kelly Stafford podcasted earlier this month. “With that being said, I love an adventure.”

But you’re 37 and even though you’re only (ahem) being paid that $27 million, you have a cap hit of nearly $50 million, and the Rams have never been a team that’s easily swayed. See: Last season’s stunning Ernest Jones IV trade, or back in the day, when they sent the great Eric Dickerson to the Colts after he protested about his inadequate pay. And now the Rams are inviting their star QB to go ahead, go out and see if he can get a better-paying deal.

Surely he can, as you noted.

But it will be with the Raiders or Giants or maybe Cleveland, teams that won’t be as talented or close to contending as the Rams are — with Stafford.

Both sides are better with each other. So hopefully, the team and the quarterback can compromise and come together for a couple more tours around the league.

But it’s sports, and I wouldn’t count on it to end harmoniously.