National Football League

Matthew Stafford's wife says he 'can't connect' to young teammates. Is that his fault?

Updated Aug. 29, 2023 12:05 p.m. ET

Thank you very much, Kelly Stafford, for simultaneously ruining the week while also regaling us with August's strangest and funniest football story. And you, Matthew Stafford. And especially you, the young TikTok-toting, Snapchatting, Threads-churning, ‘Gram-gorging members of the Los Angeles Rams locker room — you're culpable in this too.

Because reaching the age of 35 is "old," apparently.

That was the big takeaway from the latest episode of "The Morning After with Kelly Stafford" podcast, from the wife of the Rams' starting quarterback. It is possible that it's actually not everyone's big takeaway but it was certainly mine, probably because I passed 35 long ago, yet that fact had never made me feel quite as antique as it does right now.

"It's kind of crazy," Kelly Stafford said. "Matthew has been in the league a long time. He's like: ‘The difference in the locker room has changed so significantly.' They have a lot of rookies on their team, they're very young. He (feels) like (he) can't connect.'"

Why can't they connect? Shyness and awe related to sharing sweaty floor space with a Super Bowl champion and multi-time Pro Bowler? The fact that Gen Z-ers aren't exactly known for their in-person extroversion?

Nope; the blame lies, in what will come as no surprise whatsoever to any hair-tearing parent of a youngster, in that infernal weapon of mass distraction.

The phone.

"In the old days you'd come out of practice, you'd shower, and people would be playing cards, interacting," Mrs. Stafford added. "Who knows what they're doing, but they're doing something together. Playing ping pong, they have a tournament going on. They'd at least be talking. But now they get out of practice and meetings during training camp, and they go straight to their phones.

"No one looks up from their phones. Matthew's like, 'I don't know ... am I the dad? Do I take their phones? What do I do here?'"

First, if the $40 million per year QB does decide to take their phones, can we please make sure there is some live footage of how it all goes down? Because, seriously, prying the latest iPhone 14 Max Pro or Galaxy S22 Ultra from the clutches of anyone born in this millennium is probably a far tougher task than wrenching the ball free from even the most sure-handed running backs.

Next, even by the standards of strange summer storylines, this is all a bit odd, isn't it? Unless my geyser memory betrays me, weren't old quarterbacks all the rage for a while; the older the better? Not just in touch with the vibe of the game, but decidedly in vogue?

Tom Brady's defiance of the boomer-fication (not a real word, don't care) process opened football's eyes to the fact that if a QB could keep his body healthy enough to still move fluidly into his 40s, by that point he'd built up an absolute encyclopedia of pigskin knowledge as a result of seeing so many more snaps and situations than the freshest crop of off-the-rack signal callers.

Rams reportedly tried to trade QB Matthew Stafford this offseason

Russell Wilson wants to go long into his graying years. Aaron Rodgers is 39 and has stated he wants his switch to the New York Jets to be more than a brief flirtation. Age has seemed like NFL's quarterbacking X-factor. It almost felt like an unfair edge.

How could a Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud or Mac Jones compete with the muscle memory, film study memory, experiential memory and the savvy calm that belongs to those who just know what it's like to be in basically any scenario a game can conjure?

Well, maybe the phone is the great equalizer.

While the old-timers are still trying to figure out predictive text, making Siri mad and wondering where MySpace went, will they be isolated from the pulse of a locker room that is now hovering in the cloud?

That's probably a bit dramatic, but who knows? Of all the things Rams general manager Les Snead and head coach Sean McVay ("only" 37 years old) thought of as potential issues leading into the new campaign, the screen time of their rookies and the fact that Matt Stafford can't get a good game of Crazy Eights going probably wasn't one of them.

The Rams have a lot to think about already. This is the pay-the-price year for all the lavish spending that was necessary for a shot at a Super Bowl, a quest that came to fruition just over 18 months ago.

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The group of experienced players who have been around a while is tiny. Stafford and Aaron Donald are very much the outliers in terms of years spent in the league, surrounded by those at or near the start of their career.

How do you bridge the divide? How do you get teammates on the same page about routes, preferences and football foibles if they don't, you know, talk to each other? How do you stop feeling old at 44 when even 35 seems to be a chasm removed from today's youth?

When you figure it out, let me know. Answers on a postcard, email, snail mail, text or telegram, please.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider newsletter. Follow him on Twitter @MRogersFOX and subscribe to the daily newsletter.

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