Star quarterback Matthew Stafford shouldered the blame for the Los Angeles Rams’ surprising 27-24 loss to the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football.
Stafford wasn’t terrible against Atlanta, but he certainly didn’t have one of his better outings. He threw for 269 yards and two touchdowns, but he also had a couple of uncharacteristic throw that resulted in a trio of interceptions, including one in the fourth quarter.
“I obviously didn’t play well enough,” Stafford said. “Nothing they did to be honest with you. Same kind of stuff they’ve been doing all year. We didn’t execute well enough I obviously didn’t play well enough. That's what it is.”
After the game, Stafford broke down the mistakes that were made in each of the three picks that he tossed.
“We had the short under route to [Terrance Ferguson], and [Xavier Watts] did a good job of jumping it. Played the sticks and made a nice catch,” Stafford said. "Had we kept going there it would have felt like a nice little rhythm in the second half. Poor decision I guess there … felt aggressively to try and get the first down there.
“The one down the sideline, we got one of our fastest guys on a linebacker, just tried to put it up. Looks like I left it a little bit short maybe. The other one over the middle that Bates got, just gotta burn the ball and not make a bad play worse.”
Sometimes quarterbacks have an off night, and that's exactly what happened to Stafford against Atlanta. Moving forward, he's confident that he'll be better.
“If I can not hurt us in the way I did tonight,” Stafford said, “it will help our team out a lot.”
It wasn’t all bad for Stafford on Monday night, though. The veteran quarterback made some NFL history by passing Ben Roethlisberger for sixth on the league’s all-time passing list. Now, the only players who have thrown for more yards in the NFL than Stafford are Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers.