During Matthew Stafford‘s time with the Detroit Lions, I can’t even make a guess how many times I had to defend him against the trolls who would come out of the woodwork each and every time he did something less-than-perfect.
Throughout his 12 seasons in Detroit, I (and plenty of others) knew that Stafford could be a Super Bowl-winning quarterback if he actually had a solid team to work with.
Unfortunately, that never happened as the Lions not only had incompetent general managers trying to build a Super Bowl roster but they also had less-than-stellar head coaches and coordinators along the way.
During a recent mailbag article, Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, who is the best Lions beat writer around by far, gave three reasons why the Lions failed with Stafford as their quarterback.
The first reason mentioned by Birkett is the Lions playoff loss to the Dallas Cowboys. He believes that loss may have changed the course of Stafford’s time with the Lions and I don’t disagree.
As I think back on the first 12 years of Stafford’s career, there are a couple things that stand out, the biggest of which is that playoff loss to the Cowboys. Had officials not picked up that flag, had Stafford thrown to Calvin Johnson on that play instead of Brandon Pettigrew, had Jim Caldwell not punted on fourth down, had Sam Martin not shanked the punt, and had Stafford not fumbled twice in the final 3 minutes, I think the entire arc of the franchise would have been different.
If the Lions win that game, maybe they find a way to keep Ndamukong Suh in free agency a few months later. Even if they don’t, I think they get off to a better start in 2015, they don’t fire Martin Mayhew and Tom Lewand at midseason, maybe Johnson doesn’t retire after the year and the organization doesn’t sit in its Patriot-induced limbo the next few years.
Watching the ESPN “30 for 30” on the Tuck Rule a few weeks ago and hearing Tom Brady talk about how that one play changed the course of his career, I think so much for Stafford and the Lions changed with that one game at Dallas.
Nation, do you think Stafford’s time in Detroit would have been drastically different had the Lions defeated the Cowboys in that playoff game?
