Matthew Stafford Camp Update — August 23: Forty-Five Live Snaps Against the Saints
2026 NFL Season · Sunday, Aug 23
Stafford took forty-five competitive snaps in the joint practice against the Saints — his biggest live workload of camp — and spent the morning connecting with Davante Adams, deep ball included. One preseason game and one cutdown separate him from Melbourne.
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Matthew Stafford took 45 competitive snaps against the New Orleans Saints in Thursday's joint practice — the largest live workload the Rams' first-team offense has gotten all camp, per Mykell Mathieu at The Sporting Tribune — and the recurring image was Stafford to Davante Adams, including a deep completion early in the session, per Stu Jackson and Zach Edwards at the team website. Sean McVay's read: "They've got a great feel," a "really good day for those guys" that came "against tight, sticky coverage," per Mathieu. Second-year tight end Terrance Ferguson kept winning over the middle from him too, per Jackson and Edwards. The honest label for all of it is practice-grade evidence from a session shortened by design, but it is also the first time this offense has run a full snap load against another team's defense, and nobody left the field describing a problem.
Saturday's game, a 34 to nothing shutout of the Saints, was again not his: Stetson Bennett took every first-half snap and went 19 of 31 for 181 yards with two rushing touchdowns, and rookie Ty Simpson played the second half, eight of 12 for 73 yards, per Blaine Grisak at Sports Illustrated. Stafford has yet to take a preseason game snap, which for a coach managing a 38-year-old toward a season opener in Melbourne against San Francisco reads as plan, not concern.
The succession subplot hums along behind him, with Bennett and Simpson splitting the second-team reps nearly even, 13 to 12, in Thursday's shortened session, per Jackson and Edwards. Back in June we previewed the reigning Most Valuable Player as a regression candidate with an elite base whose one real doubt was the age-and-durability cliff — and a full-participation camp capped by his biggest live workload is what the healthy version of that story looks like.
Watch whether Stafford takes any game snaps in Thursday's finale against the Chargers, and whether Puka Nacua rejoins practice for Melbourne preparation as McVay expects. We'll check after cut day.
_Data via nflverse._
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