According to Detroit Lions‘ new GM Brad Holmes, “teams must excel at the quarterback position to achieve consistent success, though that success is about more than just the quarterback.”
“It seems like only the truly great ones are sustaining success,” Holmes said. “But you also hear about at the quarterback position so much goes into what’s the situation that player’s in and what’s around that player? What is that player working with? I look at it like, obviously the great ones, Tom Brady. I mean, those guys — now, at what point did you know that the ‘sustain' was sustained? Like at what point did you know, say with Peyton Manning, for example, did you know it by Year 2? I think that’s kind of what you’d have to dive deep into, when do you truly define sustained success? After Brady’s third championship?”
As you know, Holmes' biggest move so far as GM of the Lions was to trade a pretty damn good quarterback, Matthew Stafford, to the Los Angeles Rams for former No. 1 overall pick Jared Goff and three draft picks.
Most believe that Stafford is the superior quarterback of the two but according to Holmes, he defines a great quarterback by one word.
“Winning.”
During a recent exclusive interview with Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, Holmes explained that he is happy to have Goff.
“To receive a quarterback that we got in Jared, I know a lot of things are said, and it’s a subjective league and everybody’s got their opinions on how they view Jared — a lot of people had their opinions on how they viewed Matthew as well,” Holmes said. “So you can go both ways there. Everybody has their viewpoints, but I do think that the compensation was fair.”
In case you were wondering, Goff is averaging 8.4 wins per season (.609 win %) and went to a Super Bowl, while Stafford is averaging 6.2 wins per season (.451 win %) and has not won a single playoff game.
As Holmes says, it takes more than a quarterback to win football games. Goff has had solid teams around him, while Stafford has had mostly trash.
