The latest scare for the Los Angeles Rams? It occurred toward the end of Monday’s practice per reports: It involved Matthew Stafford.
Per Rams beat reporters Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic and Kevin Modesti of the Orange County Register, Stafford left practice after injuring his thumb.
Modesti tweeted that Stafford smacked his thumb on his throwing hand onto a defender’s helmet. Modesti included a brief quote from head coach Sean McVay.
The Rams got a scare when QB Matthew Stafford hit his throwing thumb on a helmet near the end of practice. Stafford left the field with the thumb wrapped, but holding his helmet with that hand. “I don’t know anything yet,” coach Sean McVay said. “I think he’ll be OK.”
Rodrigue, in her tweet, reported that the thumb was the surgically repaired one Stafford had recently.
Rams QB Matthew Stafford hit his surgically-repaired thumb on a helmet near the end of practice and got it taped by Reggie Scott; did not resume throwing. Was gripping a cold towel and his helmet well. Sean McVay said he has no information yet. Says he does think he will be OK.
Online Reactions Show Panic From Ram Fans
Ram fans entered 2021 with thoughts of making reservations for the first Sunday of February 2022 at SoFi Stadium the moment they learned Stafford was acquired via trade, as chatter of a return to the Super Bowl took place.
McVay sang his own praises, saying on June 10 how Stafford’s arrival put him in a good mood and referred to his new QB as a “bad mother f*****” during a June 21 interview with Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated.
And before his thumb-to-the-helmet scene took place, Monday’s practice was shaping up to be a Stafford-like day in the office at UC Irvine.
Impressive throw during redzone period from Matthew Stafford, rolling one way before redirecting Van Jefferson with him, then finding Jefferson in endzone for toe-drag TD catch. Darious Williams in great position to make a play and appeared to deflect, but Jefferson still caught.
But now this news has, as expected, led to reactions… including a high number of panicked members of the “Rams House.”
Beyond the Horns (BTR) gave this Twitter reaction.
One Ram fan in Berkeley offered this suggestion to the Rams:
This fan showed signs of heavy breathing.
Another fan tweeted three words accompanied with a Thanos gif.
However, the managing editor of Downtown Rams wanted to tell the Rams Twitter universe to calm down and, in the words of a famous quote from Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers in 2014, encouraged the Rams brass to R-E-L-A-X.
It’s not an Achilles
It’s not an ACL
It’s not a broken leg
It’s not a broken arm
It’s not a broken collarbone
He hurt his hand.
The regular season is seven weeks away.
This is Matthew Stafford. Not a rookie.
R-E-L-A-X
Post Practice Reaction from the Rams’ Side
Here’s how Rodrigue described what happened:
“Stafford was running the first team offense through 11-on-11’s and moving the ball downfield, when he accidentally hit his thumb on a helmet at the end of his throwing motion. He immediately bent down and gripped his right hand with his left, then came off the field and met with vide president of sports medicine and performance Reggie Scott, who looked at the digit before handing Stafford a towel (the Rams keep cold towels on the sidelines; it’s not clear if this one was cold).”
Obviously, witnessing your new franchise quarterback leave practice in this magnitude makes fans wonder if the head coach will have his heart sink to the surface.
But McVay showed no signs of panicking when the thumb hit occurred. McVay then spoke of the situation in addressing the question about Stafford’s health.
“Not sure, we’ll see on that,” McVay told the L.A. media. “I think he’ll be OK. We’ll see what happened. That’s part of the game. But I think everything will be OK there.”
McVay included that while moments like these are cause for concern and leads to a panic reaction, the head coach calmly said injuries like that are common in football, saying “Those are things that do inevitably occur.”
But could this mean altering the tempo of 11-on-11 sessions moving forward?
“It’s one of those things where I’m saying to myself, ‘Man, I feel stupid that I didn’t implement some of the things to prevent that,'” McVay explained. “I’ve seen some teams around the league that have some shells on their helmets where you can at least soften the blow when you come on top of it. What you say is hopefully you don’t have to learn the hard way and you start implementing things like that to try to just minimize the risk for injury.”
Tuesday’s practice is expected to be a full-padded day. In the event the Rams won’t have Stafford taking snaps, all signs point to John Wolford – who supplanted Jared Goff last season before his injury in the playoffs – to take over first-team QB duties.
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Report: Matthew Stafford Leaves Practice with Thumb Wrapped