Matthew Stafford can reach the Super Bowl with a win this weekend. Not so long ago that statement would have been a brilliant joke – Matthew Stafford, Super Bowl, super-funny! Although, it’s still hilarious today, only it’s not the quarterback that’s the target, but his former employer, the Detroit Lions. They won four titles in the football stone age, most recently in 1957, but have not reached the final once in the Super Bowl era since 1966. Stafford has been playing for the Los Angeles Rams since this season and a win against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday would actually put him in the finals.
Stafford’s career, 33, is an example of how US sport works with its focus on marketing individual heroes in team disciplines. The TV previews now state that “Stafford and his Rams” will play against the 49ers. So it should be his team, while the franchise belongs to billionaire Stan Kroenke. He brought the Rams back to LA from St. Louis in 2016; he built the $6 billion Sports Palace that will host the Super Bowl on February 13; and he approved the transfer from Stafford. That’s important because it explains what makes this league tick.
Stafford grew up in the state of Texas, where high school football ranks in importance between steak and God, in that order. One of his best childhood friends was Clayton Kershaw; he became one of the best baseball pitchers in history, but only got rid of the blemish of not having a title with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020. At varsity, Stafford played for the Georgia Bulldogs, and in the state of Georgia, college football ranks ahead of steaks. He was, everyone was sure, one of the greatest quarterback talents, predestined for a glorious career – but that was exactly the problem.
Stafford becomes a symbol of failure
Of course, in 2009, Stafford became the first player of his year to be drafted into the NFL, and he immediately signed a six-year contract guaranteed $41.7 million – the most for a freshman in NFL history – and which could bring him up to 78 million dollars. The problem: It was a contract with the Detroit Lions, who the previous season had managed to end their first winless season in NFL history. You don’t get to choose who you vote for in this league unless you’re as stubborn as John Elway in 1983 (flirted with a baseball career to avoid joining the Baltimore Colts) and Eli Manning in 2004 (blackmailed the San Diego Chargers more or less sending him to the New York Giants).
Stafford, however, was a nice guy, which is considered a weakness in US sport – also with reference to Elway and Manning, who each won two titles with their clubs. Stafford, on the other hand, became the face of the Lions, a symbol of failure. At first, everyone was sure that it wasn’t Stafford’s fault. In his third season, he managed – as the fourth quarterback ever – to gain more than 5,000 yards with passes and led the Lions to the playoffs. However, they lost in the first round, as they did in 2014 and 2016, and at some point people asked: Is this Stafford, whom the Lions made the highest-paid player in history ($135 million for five years) in 2017, really that good how everyone think?
Suddenly, it wasn’t about how powerful and accurate his right throwing arm was, it was about using it like a Texan pistolero blasting wildly, rather than taking down his opponents in the midday sun with just one judiciously fired shot. Sure, the Lions were legendary losers, but Stafford became part of that culture, while other playmakers like Tom Brady (voted 199th of his year) and Aaron Rodgers won championships and were celebrated as winners – again the calm mind was misinterpreted as weakness.
Stafford has never complained that the Lions never gave him an attacking line that really protected him, and never a world-class passing station other than Calvin Johnson – Johnson retired in 2016 at the age of 30 out of frustration with roster planning. But Stafford stayed. While a model winner like Brady moved on, before the 2020 season he switched to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and won his seventh title, Stafford only had enough after the past season – and left.
For the first time in his career, Stafford has a Super Bowl-ready team
The Rams traded their playmaker Jared Goff and two first-round elections for Stafford, and Kroenke pretty much put all his chips into the fact that his club this season Super Bowl Dahoam can win. They already had a world-class receiver in Cooper Kupp, they picked up a second in Odell Beckham Junior during the season. Then there’s tight end Tyler Higbee and running back Sony Michel, and there’s this insane defensive end featuring Aaron Donald, Von Miller and Jalen Ramsey.
The pass recipient and his quarterback: Receiver Cooper Kupp (left) thanks Matthew Stafford for a pass.
(Photo: Jae C. Hong/dpa)
For the first time in his career, Stafford has a Super Bowl-ready team, he no longer has to be a pistolero, just the quiet leader of a gang of unerring desperadoes; Incidentally, on Monday night (12:30 a.m. CET, before that the Cincinnati Bengals and the Kansas City Chiefs determine the second finalist) that he – unlike Rodgers – can dissect the aggressive defense of the 49ers. Rodgers is known for putting himself above God, at least when it comes to football skills, and complaining about teammates. After the playoff defeat against the 49ers last Sunday, he declared that he had no desire to rebuild the Green Bay Packers.
You never hear a bad word about Detroit from Stafford, he says: “I’m trying to be in the here and now and get the best out of the Rams.” Probably the meanest statement of his life came after the triumph against the Buccaneers last Sunday; he had prevented Brady’s comeback with a nerve-racking attacking series and afterwards said: “It was fun to win like that; it was like we had stolen her soul.”
A win on Sunday, the Rams are favourites, and a triumph at the Super Bowl should probably ensure that Stafford, the face of the Loser-Lions, one day inducted into the Football Hall of Fame. He would then, as the saying goes, have the last laugh and therefore the heartiest.
