Detroit Lions: Is Matthew Stafford the $25 Million Dollar Man?

The Debate About Matthew Stafford

Any debate about Stafford will surely divide Lions fans. Here are some common talking points. Go to any forum and I guarantee you find this exact discussion.

Cons (Stafford is not a Top QB)

First, Stafford detractors have one major fact in their corner: the record of the team against top NFL competition with him under center. Overall, he’s 51-58 as a starter, or 47% win percentage as a Lions starter. Against winning teams, he is 5-46. This is the mantra of Stafford haters.

That’s just a 9.8% win percentage, or less than one win out of every ten attempts against a winning team. That’s condemning in its own right. The 0-3 playoff record doesn’t help, either.

Second, people usually throw out the fact that he had Calvin Johnson, Jr., often referred to as “Megatron”, as his go-to wide receiver for most of his career. Calvin, detractors say, made Stafford’s job easy being that he is a massive, strong, fast player, and probably one of the top five most talented receivers to ever play in the NFL.

This leads to many nicknames for Matt Stafford like, “Statt Padford.” Of course, suggesting that his statistics are padded due to amount of attempts, Calvin Johnson, etc.

Johnson finished his career with 11,619 yards in his nine years. Of those, only 7,428 yards correlate to years both he and Stafford were healthy, or mostly healthy for entire seasons, before you do any fact-checking.