2009 1st round draft, the Detroit Lions select Matthew Stafford, Quarterback from Georgia. Right then and there, the 6-2, 230 pound QB from Georgia went from a streak of winning on the college and high school level to joining a NFL team that just came off of a 0-16 season. But hope looked good for the team with a young exciting QB taking the helm. then he got injured in 2009 and 2010, playing a total of 13 games. Enter the next season in better shape, and he plays the next 3 seasons from 2011-2013 in all 16 games but only wins 21 games in those 3 seasons. But now is a new season and a lot of people still don't trust the Lions, in particular Matthew Stafford. Right now, I'm going to show you why he should be trusted and at the age of 26, he is only poised to be more dangerous than you think.
First lets look at who he has to play every season in his division. He has to go against a Super Bowl winner in Aaron Rodgers and then another SEC QB only a 5 hour drive away in Jay Cutler. Both of these men have elite arms and can shootout any team they go against. But why is Matthew Stafford not mentioned as a elite arm? A lot of pundits would say its the team he is on but lets look at his stats. Since playing in the league in 2009, Stafford has these stats:
2009: 2267 yards, 13 TDs to 20 INTS in 10 games
2010: 535 yds, 6 TDs, 1 INT in 3 games
2011: 5038 yds, 41 TDs, 16 INTS in a full season
2012: 4967 yds, 20 TDs, 17 INTs in a full season
2013: 4650 yes, 29 TDs, 19 INTs in a full season
Now I know a lot of you naysayers will say " oh he has Calvin Johnson, of course he is going to have high stats". Really? You think Megatron is the reason his stats are so high? Well lets cut Megatrons numbers out of it then.
2009: 1,283 yds, 8 TDs ( Calvin had 984 yds and 5 TDs)
2010: 303 yds, 6 TDs ( Calvin had 1120 yards and 12 TDs, but the rest come from the back-up)
2011: 3,357 yds, 25 TDs( Calvin had 1681 yds and 16 TDs)
2012: 3,003 yds, 15 TDs ( Calvin had 1964 yds and 5 TDs)
2013: 3,150 yds, 7 TDs ( Calvin had 1492 yds and 12 TDs)
See, look at that? So crunching the numbers, that means with Calvin Johnson, Matthew Stafford has an average of 3,4091 yards and 21.8 touchdowns. And without him, Stafford has 2,219 yards and 12.2 touchdowns, and both of these are with 2 injured plagued seasons to start his career.
But this isn't the sole reason Stafford is a rising star. Those stats above are from the Jim Schwartz era. His methodology has changed and only for the better, lets look at a play he did during the comeback win versus the Dallas Cowboys. http://youtu.be/MwDh6tqpyek?t=16s
Now look at the way Stafford was locked in to get the ball to Kris Durham. it was crisp, precise and damn near seamless. In the Schwartz era, you would only see that Stafford if the game was on the line or if they were definitely better than the opposite team. Now lets look at Stafford in his first game of this season.
Notice something different? Every play he threw on had that same type of tempo he had last year under the Schwartz era. The reason this is because of the retooling of Stafford via Jim Caldwell and Joe Lombardi. Both of these guys decided that in order for stafford to be the best version of himself they needed to keep his cannon for an arm, make him more responsible for deciding the play, lighten him up( physically), and make him more of a weapon instead of a game manager.
And that's why Stafford will be dangerous. Before this season, you could equate Stafford to a old school boxer: great but always has that big punch that will either win him the fight or let him down more than once. Now Stafford is like a MMA fighter: he is the weapon on top of having various ways to attack you, which in my opinion his nickname should be "Arsenal". Now when a defense has to play the Lions you also have to worry about stafford escaping from the pocket buying time for his receivers to get open and make plays, and with the people he is with, that is the last thing you want to see.
So in closing, in a league where everyone wants to find that next big QB, whether it be a QB who is playing backup for a legend, or a certain guy in Cleveland who won't start because the coach won't give him the chance, the NFL has a star waiting to be unveiled. Matthew Stafford has the ability and god given skills to make the Lions not only a team on the national spotlight, but also become a even greater QB than he already is. All he has to do is to keep shining and glow brighter.
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