Rams QB Stafford reveals how he asked for a trade and more

Quarterback Matthew Stafford has been pretty quiet since the Rams acquired him in a January trade with the Detroit Lions, where the former No. 1 overall draft pick spent the first 12 years of his career.

But he opened up on a range of topics Tuesday in a 45-minute interview with the Los Angeles Times, discussing the decision to ask for a trade, his future with the Rams, and what it was like having Dodgers star Clayton Kershaw snapping to him on their high school football team.

Excerpts from the interview:

— After 12 years in Detroit, you asked the Lions for a trade. What brought you to that point?

It was tough. It wasn’t something that I thought about on a Friday and happened on a Saturday. It was something that I had spent some time thinking about. It started casually probably with just my wife and I. She saw everything I put into this game and that team and that city, everything I had given. She had a front-row seat for that. She would talk to me about it, we would talk to each other.

It’s one of those things in life where you’ve got to make a decision. It wasn’t something that was easy for me. It was something that frankly could have backfired in my face. I could have said, “Hey, this is what I’m thinking,”