ESPN28 de ago, 2023, 18:26Lectura: 4 min.
Cooper Kupp: Rams veterans have responsibility to guide rookies
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Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford doesn’t connect with the team’s youngsters who live glued to their cell phones, says his wife Kelly.
template Los Angeles Rams has undergone massive changes in the two years since the team won Super Bowl LVI, and the influx of young people makes the quarterback Matthew Stafford you find it hard to connect with his teammates, according to his wife, kelly.
“It’s a little crazy. So, Matthew has been in the league a long time. He says, ‘The locker room difference has changed significantly.’ They have a lot of rookies on their team, they’re very young. But he says, ‘I feel like I can’t connect,'” Kelly Stafford said on her podcast, “The Morning After With Kelly Stafford,” last week.
Rams’ Matthew Stafford #9 and his wife Kelly Hall react after defeating the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game at SoFi Stadium on January 30, 2022 in Inglewood, California. The Rams defeated the 49ers, 20-17.Christian Petersen/Getty Images
“In the old days, you’d walk out of practice, shower, and people would play cards, interact. Who knows what they’re doing, but they’re doing something together. Playing pingpong, they have a tournament going on. At least they’d be talking. But now they walk out of practice and meetings during training camp, and go straight to their phones. No one looks up from their phones. Matthew says, ‘I don’t know… am I the dad? Shall I take your phones? What do I do here?’ He says: ‘I want them to see me not as a coach’.”
Matthew Stafford, 35, is entering his 15th season in the NFL and his third with the Rams. The Rams enjoyed roster stability in their first two seasons, but several high-profile players left in free agency or were traded this year. The turnover on defense is such that the defensive lineman Aaron Donald and the middle linebacker Ernest Jones are the only defensemen to start the team’s Super Bowl victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. The team also selected 14 players in the 2023 NFL draft.
Now Kelly Stafford says her husband is fighting to be seen as an equal by his new teammates.
“They call him ‘sir’ and ‘m—,” he said. “He says, ‘No, we’re at the same level here, we both play in the league. Let me meet you.’ He said it’s very different and very difficult to meet these guys. He had a book printed. He had the team manager print a book with all their faces and all their names, because he said, ‘I need to know their names.’ We need to talk, so I’m going to look up their names and say, ‘Hey so-and-so, how was your weekend?’ So they know I know them and maybe we should get to know each other so there’s chemistry on the pitch.”
“But I think today it’s very difficult to develop that because all these young people don’t care. Or it’s not that they don’t care, but they’re so used to going straight to their phones instead of having some time to have fun with some guys in the locker room. It’s different. It’s a little sad.”
Kelly Stafford said she and her husband were planning to host a team party, but those plans were scrapped when their home flooded in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Hilary. She said that if they invited the team to a dinner, most of the guys would attend, but then they would suggest going “to the club” and not talking over dinner. She said that when they were with the Detroit Lionsthe franchise was good at hosting events and suggested the Rams do the same.
“I would set it up so that the players have a box where everyone can go to this match [de Messi] so they can hang out,” he said. “The Lions always had events and were good at it. So when you lose or win, it seems like it doesn’t mean as much because your team isn’t connected like it used to be.
“I think Matthew is the one who feels it the most because he’s so old and he’s like a leader on the team. But he says, ‘I don’t know how to lead people I have no connection to. Somehow I have to find a way to connect. with them.'”
2023-08-28 21:32:28
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