Kelly Stafford Calls Out NFL on Instagram: Rams Get Only 10 Days, Not a True Bye Week
Kelly Stafford, the wife of Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, took to her Instagram Story on November 3 to call out the NFL, asking why the Rams were being made the only team in the league without a true bye week. The posts were covered on November 4 by Sports Illustrated, USA Today's For The Win and the New York Post, among others, and NFL reporter Ari Meirov's repost on X spread the topic further.
Stafford wrote: '@NFL Just curious to hear the thought process behind making the Rams the only team in the NFL without a true bye week. Because damn, after 18 years around this league, even I need a week off during the season... and I have never played a single snap.' She added a question box reading 'We didn’t give the Rams a bye week because…' and said in a follow-up video that she kept seeing alerts about players getting healthy after the bye week: 'Not for the Rams, though, because they didn’t get a bye week.'
The schedule itself is a matter of record: the Rams visit the Arizona Cardinals on November 15, have their Week 11 bye, and then host the Green Bay Packers at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on Wednesday, November 25 — Thanksgiving Eve — in the NFL's first-ever Thanksgiving Eve game. That leaves only 10 days between games, instead of the roughly two weeks a conventional bye provides.
Her 'only team' claim, however, is not strictly accurate: the Packers also play on November 15, also have their bye in Week 11 and also play on November 25, on the same 10-day interval, as Sports Illustrated noted in its follow-up coverage. It is not the first time Stafford has publicly criticized the Rams' 2026 schedule: she previously pointed out on Instagram that the Rams play in Australia, on Christmas and on Thanksgiving Eve, with seven prime-time games, and 'DON’T HAVE A REAL BYE WEEK.'
Source: Kelly Stafford's Instagram account
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 公羊主场SoFi Stadium资料图（Troutfarm27摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经Wikimedia Commons；非本次发帖现场图）
