So the quarterback of the Detroit Lions has signed a five year contract extension worth $135 million dollars? Hurray for him. Not exactly Mayweather, Buffet, Gates, Winfrey, or Trump money, but he won't be eating ramen noodles any time soon either.
This is a good thing, maybe.
But Stafford, despite continuing to be hailed in Detroit as some sort of super-hero, has been far from it.
The man is 29 years old, entering his ninth NFL season, and has, to date, posted a 51-58 career win/loss record. A somewhat less than mediocre winning percentage of .468.
On top of that, he has yet to lead his team to a single playoff victory. Not one in his previous eight years. There is little reason to believe it will happen this year either, given the same over-hyped but talent/coaching/brains shy version of the current Lions.
Is any sane person to believe a QB with such career stats deserves to be the highest paid player in the NFL?
That's not only bad, but pitiful. Only in Detroit could they be desperate enough to shower such a player with boatloads of money and come up with such a deal.
Thing is, by agreeing to stay with the Motown puddy-tats through the year 2022, Stafford has all but sealed his fate.
By the time that contract expires, the modern day Georgia Peach will be 34 years old. Pretty much on the back side of his career bell curve. True, that Brady guy in New England keeps on rolling like the energizer bunny, but no reasonable person would confuse Matthew and Tom. One has always been elite, the other mediocre. One gets it done when it matters most. The other falls flat.
And by the time 2022 rolls around, if Stafford is even capable of playing, no other team will be interested. It's entirely possible the next five years will go by and he STILL won't win a playoff game. Get to the Super Bowl, let alone winning it? The ultimate pipe dream/fantasy. Ain't gonna happen. Not with that bunch.
So yes, he'll be fabulously wealthy and the next few generations of Staffords will have nothing to worry about financially.
But if he ever aspired to a "ring" -- and isn't that the ultimate goal of most players? -- he just kissed it goodbye by signing away the rest of his career with the ever-hapless Lions.
It would have been interesting to see which other teams might have made a pitch for him had he played out this year and became a free agent. No doubt, he could have started for some, but certainly not all.
Forget New England. Even if Brady hangs it up after next year, they have that Jimmie guy waiting in the wings they've groomed all along.
Pittsburgh? A maybe, but only if Big Ben called it quits. The Steelers wouldn't pay mega-bucks for a guy like Stafford to ride the pine.
No way would he displace Russell Wilson in Seattle.
Nor Derek Carr in Oakland.
Eli in Giants land? Uh-uh.
Matt Ryan in Atlanta or Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay? Puh-leeze.
The Cowboys have a young stud named Dak Prescott, so would have little use for Stafford.
The Skins in DC are committed to Kirk Cousins. Ditto.
Drew Brees in New Orleans will only be displaced when he decides to retire, which evidently isn't quite yet.
There are likely a few teams that might consider taking on Stafford, but at a reduced price. Forget his gaudy passing stats, the fact remains he's far under .500 after eight seasons as a starter. Period. And his over-hyped regular season comeback heroics pale in the face of his play-off chokes.
Also true is there are several teams that would be glad to have him. Let's say Cleveland, Jacksonville, Miami, Houston, KC, Philly, San Fran, the Jets, Bears, and Denver -- maybe. Charlotte has already committed to Cam Newton, he of the once promising future, but also the same guy that can't get over the funk of being blasted in the Super Bowl a couple years back.
Yet in the end, Matthew Stafford, a Georgia native, has decided to ride out what is left of his useful career with the Detroit Lions.
That would seem to make him Ernie Banks-ish, with one huge difference. The former star of the Chicago Cubs never had free agency available to him. The north-siders, woeful as they were, owned his butt. He made it into the Hall of Fame, and rightfully so, but never got anywhere near sniffing any sort of championship. He was stuck. Not so with Stafford. He had choices.
And as the past 60 years of the Lions have proven, with no help in sight ----
That's just ugly.
Pity. As they say, the dude could have been a contender.
But as the old song (House of the Rising Sun) goes, being in the wrong place at the wrong time and making the wrong decisions has been the ruin of many a poor boy.
Alas.
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