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When it comes to opinions on Matthew Stafford in this town, it seems you either love or hate him. To me, it is just the opposite.
He’s kind of right there in the middle, which presents a bit of a conundrum for the Lions as they try to properly handle his impending contract situation this off-season. Stafford has just one year left on his deal. Typically in the NFL, said player would be handsomely rewarded with a major extension before the next training camp commences.
But locking up a quarterback for those kinds of dollars tends to severely hamstring a team’s ability to improve in other areas. The salary cap becomes weighted heavily to the money you are devoting to that one position.
There is no position in professional sports as married to a team’s success like the quarterback in football. A top QB can take an otherwise mediocre team to meteoric heights. We’ve seen it in recent history; guys like Drew Brees and Peyton Manning raising the Lombardi trophy armed with nondescript defensive units. Heck, Manning even got Jim Caldwell to a Super Bowl in his first year as a head coach.
A game-changing quarterback is worth his weight in gold, but it is still very fair to ask if Stafford will ever be that player.
Rate Stafford’s 2016 Season
Take this season, for example. It can be looked at one of two ways.
The Stafford-defenders say this was a banner year for the QB. They point to all of the fourth-quarter dramatics with a record number of comeback victories. They make a hard stop after 13 games, citing that pristine 9-4 mark and declaring everything post-finger injury to be irrelevant to the conversation.
Then there are those less impressed with that same 2016 season. They will compare the Lions record against non-playoff teams (9-2) against those that did qualify for the postseason (0-6). They’ll talk about the good, but not great overall statistics. And they will dissect the final four games, including the ugly outing in Seattle, that exposed the squad as much more pretender than contender.
Both arguments have elements of truth, but it's troubling just how big a deal this season was for Stafford and how much adulation was directed his way. Unfortunately, it speaks volumes about his career to this point that going 9-7 and bowing meekly out of the playoffs can result in MVP chatter and talks of a massive contract extension.
Joe Flacco
Other Cities Expect More
Look at Joe Flacco. He basically had the same season as Stafford; threw a few more picks and a few less touchdowns, but the performances were very similar. Stafford led the Lions to nine wins to Flacco’s eight with the Ravens.
Yet all the talk in Baltimore is about how Flacco needs to improve; how he needs to start earning his $20 million a year; how being in the playoff hunt is not nearly good enough. And he brought a Super Bowl home to Charm City in 2012!
It says a great deal about the expectations other franchises and fan bases have for their quarterbacks, and the mediocrity we sometimes dress up as greatness here in Detroit.
It has to be troubling even for the most ardent of Stafford supporters that such a big deal was made out of this 2016 season. It’s not to discount everything the Lions did, of course. Making the playoffs in the NFL, through the backdoor or not, is a respectable accomplishment. But it is not cause for hysterics.
When the Lions were making wild comebacks to defeat the Rams, Jaguars, Vikings, and Bears, the Detroit sports world went bonkers for Stafford, while ignoring the elephant in the room: Why are the Lions trailing these teams until the very last minute?
If you are a city with a true star under center, making the playoffs is worth a little pat on the back, but not a whole lot more. The real money is made in January and beyond. Are Giants fans kissing the feet of Eli Manning today for taking the Giants to the playoffs? No chance. And that is a guy with a pair of SB rings.
The passionate defenders of #9, and there are plenty of them, like to point out the inadequacies elsewhere on the team as means of boosting their man’s profile. The defense stinks. How about all those drops? Do we have a running back? Why does our coach seem half-asleep during games?
These are fair points. But the truly elite quarterbacks in the league overcome. They are able to take a ho-hum roster and make it downright dangerous.
Tom Brady has played his whole career in New England with marginal running backs. Aaron Rodgers has had years with major injuries to his receiving corps and the offense still hums. Matt Ryan made up for one of the league’s worst defenses in 2016, throwing for a million touchdowns and securing a first-round bye.
To be fair, there aren’t many of these types of quarterbacks out there. Franchise passers do not grow on trees. But if the Lions are about to pay Stafford like he is one of these guys, then the expectation is that he perform like them, too. The only thing is; we’re eight years in on this Stafford thing. I’m not sure things are changing so drastically from this point forward.
Nobody in the Wings
The point is often made -- You say get rid of him. Who you gonna get that's better?
And while there is some basis for that argument, it’s also a systematically flawed one.
The Lions have never made the slightest attempt during these eight Stafford years to bring along another quarterback. It is never a position given any consideration during the draft. The organization has made 62 picks since the selection of Stafford. The only one spent on a quarterback was in the most recent draft, where Jake Rudock was plucked from Ann Arbor in the sixth round.
So while the "Who else would you rather have?" reasoning looks sensible on paper, it is in part a direct result of the franchise’s refusal to glance at another quarterback even once over the last decade. If the Lions had taken a QB after four or five years of Stafford -- if for nothing else, just to have a backup plan in case of major injury -- you might now have a young player ready to take over the team. But no such measures were ever taken.
The organization was acting under the impression that they had a surefire Hall of Famer directing the offense as opposed to a former top overall pick that might never quite live up to the billing. Hell, even the 49ers had the good sense to trade for third-year man Steve Young, and they had Joe Freaking Montana at quarterback.
Unfortunately, it is hard to look at the overall arsenal for Stafford and see how this could lead to greatness down the road. After eight seasons as a professional, it’s safe to say that a player has more or less shown just about all he is able to do.
A Rocket Arm Used Only to Shoot BBs
Too often, Stafford is a stronger-armed version of Alex Smith. Throughout Smith’s career in the NFL, he’s been criticized, despite being successful, for so often throwing short -- “Captain Checkdown,” he’s been derisively labeled. Players like Roethlisberger or Rodgers, and Peyton Manning (Colts version) scoff at such risk-averse tactics. Stafford is not quite the master of the checkdown, but he’s in the conversation.
When the Lions do throw the ball down the field, it’s always way more exciting than it should be. Stafford connected with Marvin Jones down the sideline against Seattle; it felt like an 80-yard completion when in fact it was just a pickup of 30. It’s difficult to score touchdowns in the NFL, especially against quality defenses, when everything is a screen or a short toss.
In 2015, Stafford achieved a first in league history: he became the first player to ever complete over 60% of his passes in all 16 games of the season. Impressive, right? Sort of. To go with all of those completions was the hidden figure that Stafford’s throws were, on average, the shortest by any quarterback in the National Football League. His passes traveled just 6.6 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Even the notoriously cautious Smith managed a 6.8 yard average for the Chiefs.
What good is a quarterback with the rocket arm of Matthew Stafford if he is so often going to opt for the safe, easily completeable pass?
Yes, the Lions receivers let him down against Seattle. They made key drops, some on third downs that would have brought about a fresh series. But they weren’t dropping 40 or 50-yard bombs.
Matthew Stafford
It’s hard to dink and dunk your way all the way to the end zone multiple times a game, and sure enough, the Lions had trouble moving the ball consistently for large parts of the season. They were unable to reach the 30-yard line at any point in Saturday’s loss to Seattle.
It is the humble opinion of this scribe that another six to eight years of Stafford is not the right way to go for this franchise. Just like head coaches, sometimes a team needs a new voice, some fresh energy brought to the offensive huddle. It doesn’t necessarily mean the previous guy was completely incapable; just that things have run their natural course and it’s a healthy time for everyone to move on.
Case study: Bengals and Carson Palmer
The Bengals and Carson Palmer parted ways in a similar fashion a handful of years ago and there were very few Cincy fans shedding a tear as the break-up played out. The Bengals snagged Andy Dalton in the second round and proceeded to make the playoffs five years in a row. The team somehow managed to get bounced in the first round all five of those times (once without an injured Dalton), but it still presents easily found proof that a franchise can say goodbye to a solid quarterback and not suffer for the next decade because of it.
Not all transitions will be as smooth as the one in Cincinnati, but that fear of the unknown shouldn’t hold a franchise hostage for 15 years. If the Lions are to open the vault and hand Stafford a King’s ransom, they’d essentially be making the organizational equivalent of throwing that three-yard checkdown. It’s safe and it won’t cause many ripples in the water; but it doesn’t offer the opportunity for big gains, either.
This is a franchise in need of a jump start. On paper, the playoff appearance looks like a step forward, but the completely uncompetitive four-game stretch that closed out the season put a major damper on that accomplishment.
Creating an exit plan for the Stafford experience in Detroit does not mean he is undeserving of a starting quarterback job in the NFL. There are most definitely not 32 guys better than him playing the position today. But next year will be his ninth as a Lion and he still turtles against good opponents on the road. And the throws are only getting shorter and shorter every year.
It’s just time. Time for a fresh start, both for Stafford and the Lions.
Ernie Harwell addressed this subject at the end of his remarkable broadcasting career with the Tigers. He said, “It’s time to say goodbye. But I think goodbyes are sad and I’d much rather say hello. Hello to a new adventure.”
Circumstances differ, but the message still resonates. The decision not to offer a $150-million extension to Stafford would be hard. And like Mr. Harwell said, it might be a sad day for many in Detroit. But it would also bring about a fresh chapter of Lions football.
It might be better, it might be worse. But at least it would be new. And it wouldn’t be taking over a giant-sized portion of the team’s salary cap, either.
This team has not won its division in 24 years, maybe the most improbable streak in all of sports.
It’s by no means all the fault of Stafford. But he has been unable to put an end to the madness. It’s time to let someone else step up and take their shot.
Reruns are entertaining for a while, but eventually you become starved for some brand new episodes.
Under center, for the Detroit Lions, that time has officially come.
