Ever since he was selected by the Detroit Lions 1st overall in the 2009 NFL Draft, Matthew Stafford has been a lightning rod around the Motor City and beyond. Some insist he is the greatest quarterback the Lions have ever had, while others would be perfectly happy if he never played another down in Detroit.
Well, if the latest reports are accurate, some people are about to be very happy and some, not so much.
According to Stacey Dale of the NFL Network, there is “internal optimism” that the Lions and Stafford will get a deal done within the next couple of weeks.
If a deal is indeed reached, chances are that Stafford will become the highest paid player in the NFL. That is something that Lions president Rod Wood would be just fine with.
“I’m comfortable in getting a deal done with him, and we’ll see where that ends up,” Wood said. “It’s going to be whatever it takes, I think, to make it happen from both sides, and whether he becomes the highest-paid or not, it’ll be a short-lived designation because, as Bob [Quinn] said, and I think it’s true, if you’re in the top whatever of quarterbacks, when your time comes up, your time comes up and then somebody else’s time comes up, and they become the highest-[paid player].
“It’s a premium position, and you need to have a very, very good player at that position to be credible and be competitive, and I think we do have that, and we’re working on getting a deal done.”
The thought of many going into the offseason was that Stafford and his agent would wait to negotiate a deal until David Carr got his contract out of the way with the Raiders. Well, Carr recently signed a 5-year, $125 million deal to play in Oakland.
The ball is in Matthew Stafford’s court now.
