NFL News & Notes: Matthew Stafford Leads League In TD Passes, Chiefs Moving To Kansas
With the NFL playoffs on the horizon, the Los Angeles Rams' Matthew Stafford is outpacing the league’s other quarterbacks in touchdown passes.
Stafford has thrown for 40 touchdowns so far this season in leading the Rams to an 11-4 record and a good shot winning the NFL championship. The nearest quarterback to that total is the Detroit Lions’ Jared Goff, with 32 touchdown passes. (These two quarterbacks switched teams in a 2021 trade.)
In the NFL, there are two regular-season games left before the playoffs begin on Jan. 10. The Super Bowl is set for Feb. 8, 2026, at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., home of the San Francisco 49ers.
Stafford turns 38 one day before the Super Bowl kicks off in February, but he is not the oldest quarterback in the league this year. The oldest is 44-year-old Philip Rivers of the Indianapolis Colts. After Rivers sat out for about five years, the Colts, dealing with injuries at the quarterback position, recently signed him. Rivers has started the team’s last two games. (Steelers starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers turned 42 earlier this month.)
With two games to go, Stafford is likely to increase his total number of touchdown passes, though it is doubtful he will surpass the single-season record of 55 set by Denver’s Peyton Manning in 2013. Only two other quarterbacks, Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes, have passed for 50 or more touchdowns in a season.
Stafford also leads the league this season in passing yards, at 4,179. He has been named to the upcoming Pro Bowl, his third.
Chiefs Leaving Missouri For Kansas
A lackluster 6-9 record this year has knocked Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs out of playoffs for the first time in 10 seasons. Meanwhile, Mahomes recently was sidelined with a torn ACL that could keep him out for 9-12 months, unless he bounces back more quickly. He underwent surgery on Monday in Dallas.
That’s not the only football news out of Kansas City.
The Chiefs this week announced they are moving into a new stadium across the state line in Kansas in time for the 2031 season. The Chiefs have played in Arrowhead Stadium on the Missouri side since 1972.
The new domed stadium at a yet-to-be-determined site in Kansas will have 65,000 seats, or 10,000 fewer than Arrowhead, officials said.
The move will leave Missouri without an NFL team. At the conclusion of the 2015 season, the St. Louis Rams, after 20 in Missouri, moved back to Los Angeles—where, this season, Stafford could gift himself with an NFL title for his 38th birthday. At DraftKings Sportsbook, the Los Angeles Rams (+425) are favored to win this season’s Super Bowl.
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