When the Los Angeles Rams take the field in Melbourne this week against the San Francisco 49ers, it will feel somewhat like home for quarterback Matthew Stafford, even though they’ll be playing several thousand miles from L.A.
Stafford has played in a pair of international games during his long career, and both times he’s put up performances to remember.
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Last year, Stafford led the way in a dominant 35-7 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars in the Jags’ second home, London. It was bizarre game for the Rams, box score-wise, considering they only tallied 271 yards but scored five touchdowns.
All five of those touchdowns, in fact, came from the right arm of the NFL’s Most Valuable Player. While only averaging 5.5 yards per attempt and racking up 182 total passing yards, Stafford hit Davante Adams for three scores, plus one apiece for Terrance Ferguson and Konata Mumpfield.
One of the most impressive parts of the win and Stafford’s effort in particular is the fact the Rams didn’t have first-team All-Pro wide receiver Puka Nacua available in the game. Without him, Stafford completed passes to 10 different receivers and Los Angeles cruised to a victory last October.
You have to go over a decade back in time to get to Stafford’s other international appearance, a legendary comeback for the Detroit Lions over the Atlanta Falcons.
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Two full seasons before the notorious collapse in the history of football, the Falcons led the Lions 21-0 at the half in London. Atlanta wouldn’t score again, however, while Stafford engineered one of his NFL-high five fourth-quarter comebacks that season. Along with three field goals from Matt Prater, including the game winner as time expired, Stafford connected with Golden Tate in the third quarter and Theo Riddick in the fourth for touchdowns as part of the comeback effort.
That was one of Stafford’s best seasons in Detroit, earning a Pro Bowl nod while leading the Lions to the postseason, a rarity at the time for that franchise. That game, in particular, was one of the biggest moments of that campaign.
Ideally, this would be a harbinger of things to come for the Rams this week, but considering past events don’t dictate future outcomes (and neither of those games was completely on the opposite side of the world), this is probably little more than a pair of fun anecdotes.
But, if it helps you get some trash talk off this week, then it was all worth it.
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