Detroit Lions |
Height: 6-3 Weight:
220 Age: 30
Born: 2/7/1988 Tampa, FL
College: Georgia
Experience: 10th season
High School: Highland Park HS
[Dallas, TX]
The Perception:
Entering his 10th NFL season, Matthew Stafford
somehow still has stigma attached to him which has the public view perceiving
him in a negative light. That stigma ascertains the notion that Matthew isn’t a
sound quarterback and shouldn’t be discussed in the same conversation as the
other elite level talents in the league. ADF will concede in this case as we
too have been guilty by association allowing the masses to convince us that
Matthew Stafford is nothing more than your average to above average franchise
pivot. While that thought process may have had justification for the 2012 and
2014 campaigns, the overall book on Stafford is rather impressive when you look
at the consistency over his last 7 seasons.
When Matthew entered the NFL, great hype followed him as the Detroit
Lions fan base finally believed they had their answer to the most important
position in football. His 2009 and 2010 seasons were riddled with injury and
underachieving which helped the public place that opinion upon him as overrated
and not possessing toughness needed to play the position. Fast forwarding eight
years later, Matthew has been the poster boy for consistency while generating
top flight numbers on almost a yearly basis though still not being able to
shake the perception given early in his career. While some tried to lift
Stafford out of the average quarterback bucket in providing sound reason for
the sell, their arguments seemed to fall by the wayside quickly whenever
Calvin Johnson was brought into the conversation. If became difficult to argue
the concept that “Megatron” (aka Calvin Johnson) was solely responsible for
elevating Matthew’s play, covering up inefficiencies and inadequacies in his
game. While ADF always seemed to give into the argument, we weren’t alone in
the matter.
With something inside screaming for us to look at Matthew
Stafford in a different light, the time came for our endorsement to rise, as we
did so in our 2016 & 2017 draft kits making claims that Matthew Stafford
was a credible/reliable quarterback with great upside. The interesting aspect
about our later evaluations on Stafford was that we liked the upside more when
Calvin Johnson decided to hang up the cleats, strange I know. Our argument was
based on how much Matthew was forcing the issue trying to accommodate the
uber-talented pass catching ability of Johnson, rather than spreading the ball
around to his other capable receivers. While others estimated a drop off in
production post Calvin retiring, we felt this was the opportunity to sing the
praises of the savvy veteran, and he didn’t disappoint. In our eyes, Matthew
Stafford has removed the average player persona making us firm believers in his
abilities for the upcoming season.
The Reality:
Since Calvin Johnson departed, Stafford has seen equal to better
production while having his best statistical performances with career low
interceptions thrown, and interception rate falling under 2% for this first
time in his tenure, as we predicted once Calvin was out of the picture.
Entering his third season without Calvin catching passes, the Lions have
created an offense that has become multidimensional in the pass game lead by
Golden Tate and Marvin Jones. Rounding out the depth at receiver, the Lions are
expecting big things from second year player Kenny Golladay, creating the
height mismatch left behind when Johnson moved on from football.
Continuing down the path of change, the Detroit Lions hired
former Patriots defensive coordinator (Matt Patricia) to remake this club using
the winner prowess obtained from his days under Bill Belichick. Even though
Patricia has focus to the defensive side of the ball, (much like his mentor),
the overall understanding in how to build a winning formula should be ingrained
and applied in this new Lions system. The agenda was clear early this offseason
to provide assistance for Matthew Stafford by securing two new running backs,
one from free agency and one from the NFL draft. What past regimes failed to
understand in Detroit was the importance of a solid run attack to create
misdirection ultimately improving the pass game, something Stafford hasn’t enjoyed
in his career. Signing underappreciated high volume runner LeGarrette Blount to
the fold gives the Lions a formidable hard nose punishing type of back to help
in short yardage and goal line situations. Not being fully satisfied, the Lions
brain trust went fishing in the draft securing the services of the dynamic running
ability of Kerryon Johnson. With both these backs added to the mix, it’s clear
the Patriot way of assembling a running back room filled with talent was the
primary objective.
Like a fine wine getting better with age, Matthew Stafford should
find great success in his tenth season and beyond finally being teamed with a
coach that understands how to appropriately support and extract the talent from
a true franchise quarterback. Inheriting a viable trio of pass catchers while
creating a productive run attack will go a long way in the offensive success of
the Lions in 2018.
The Outlook:
Since the 2011 season, the numbers Stafford has been able to
generate consistently has been rather astonishing to say the least. Never
seeing a year throwing under 4200 yards topping out at a career best of just
over 5000 yards, it’s clear what Matthew is able to produce. Stafford also is
no stranger to finding his targets in the endzone seeing an average of 28.1
touchdowns over his last seven seasons with a career best of 41 touchdown
passes in 2011. As mentioned above, the most impressive maturation of his game
has been the reduction of interceptions thrown. In this new offensive system
where the focus could be geared toward a shorter pass attack leveraging the
talent in Theo Riddick and Ameer Abdullah, while still taking deep shots
exploiting defenses forced to stay close to the line of scrimmage, Stafford
should see high-end numbers once again this season. Adding to that point, the
Lions have never enjoyed the fruits of a true play action pass where the opposition
would take notice providing Matthew with greater looks down the field; this
should come to fruition in 2018.
From the fantasy football perspective, it’s baffling to witness Matthew
Stafford so neglected as he currently holds an ADP of 84, while seeing his
worst result slip to an ADP of 130. These numbers suggest Stafford remains a
lower end commodity being passed over for lesser producing talent that hold
some level of potential. What makes this surprising is that Matthew was the
seventh ranked quarterback in fantasy last season racking up 273.8 fantasy points giving him
an average of 17.1 points per
contest. Though some will argue this placement is correct, we believe there is
great potential for Stafford to exceed last year tallies in a system poised to
become a high powered unit. ADF finds it easy to endorse Stafford as fantastic
value given where he could be selected in upcoming fantasy drafts. Rounding out
your roster and finding a way to steal Matthew in rounds eight to ten could be
the ultimate bargain this season. We envision numbers hovering around 4400-4600
passing yards, throwing 30-35 touchdowns, while keeping pace with low interception
rates turning it over a mere 8-12 times, fantasy gold could be had with Matthew
Stafford this year.
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