Matthew Stafford arrived in LA with a losing record and a long list of lessons from his time in Detroit, and a legion of loyal fans. He carries all of it into the Super Bowl, with the chance to finally be known as a winner.
In his first season with the Rams, Stafford found what he'd been missing over 12 lost seasons with the Lions: help. The only team in Detroit that came close to matching the one he's on now was the 2014 squad that featured one of the best defenses in the NFL and two 1,000-yard receivers in Calvin Johnson and Golden Tate. The Lions were bounced by the Cowboys and a controversial call in the Wild Card round, the closest Stafford had come to a playoff win prior to this season.
Now he's one win from glory, with most of Detroit and all of his former teammates cheering him on. They seem to want it as badly for Stafford as Stafford wants it for himself. Asked Monday if he's playing for more than himself in the Super Bowl, maybe more than his own legacy, Stafford, on his 34th birthday, said, "I think we all are."
"If we sit here and say we’re not a product of our experiences or we haven’t learned things from great coaches or teammates along the way, we’d be lying to ourselves," he said. "I think we're all playing for not only the guys in this locker room, but the people who have helped us get to this position. And there are so many people in Detroit, important people in my life, who have helped me get here."
He singled out the Ford Family, not that Lions fans will want to hear it. He said the owners of the NFL's most hapless franchise were "unbelievable in giving me the opportunity to even come into this league and play this game that I love. He said he's still in contact with them, "as I am with so many teammates that I played with." Like Megatron, who said last week he'll have to fight back tears if Stafford hoists the trophy they were chasing together in Detroit.
"I got a chill running through me (thinking about it)," Johnson told the Rich Eisen Show. "I feel like it’s going to be part mine too, because that’s my teammate. But nah, I’m going to be extremely happy for the guy."
Johnson has been texting with Stafford throughout this season. His message after the Rams knocked off the 49ers to reach the Super Bowl was one word long: "Championship." He was never one to waste words.
The Lions, it can be argued, wasted Stafford. For 12 years, they had a Super Bowl-caliber quarterback and never won so much as a playoff game. Stafford, who wasn't free of blame himself, finally requested a trade last offseason with the organization plunging into another rebuild. It was a marriage marred by missteps. But Stafford still feels love for the franchise that drafted him first overall in 2009 and for all the players who helped him try to fix it.
"I do appreciate so much everybody’s support and know when I’m out there playing, whether it's this week in the Super Bowl or any other game, I’m a representation of those experiences that I’ve had with those people," he said. "I feel like every time I step out onto the field, I’m playing for not really myself but for everybody that's helped get me there."
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Stafford would never be in the Super Bowl this year if he hadn't left Detroit -- and, perhaps, if he hadn't played here in the first place. He was hardened by his time with the Lions. He learned how to lose, without losing his way. He built up scar tissue that served him well this season when the Rams scuffled in November and nearly gave away the divison down the stretch. Stafford took it on the chin while keeping his chin up, unshaken by nothing he hadn't seen.
"The ability to overcome adversity," Stafford said of his No. 1 lesson with the Lions.
"We had a tough stretch this year in November where we lost three in a row and I didn't play particularly good football, but we just continued to work, trust each other and understand that the process of going to work every day is what gets you out of that. I’m hoping that if I’ve helped turn one guy's attitude on this team, maybe it helped us get to this point. Those are things you don’t really learn unless you go through some tough times, and there were some times in Detroit that really taught me that. And I’ve carried it with me."
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Few quarterbacks, if any, ever played so long with such little success in one city as Stafford in Detroit. And few quarterbacks, if any, have ever been so lustily supported by the city they left behind as Stafford in LA. Not Brady in Tampa, not Peyton in Denver. It's a funny thing. Stafford's shortcomings with the Lions have spawned a story of redemption. Looking back, the losses have made him lovable.
Stafford lost more games (74) over his final eight seasons with the Lions than any quarterback in the NFL. He also engineered the most fourth quarter comebacks (26) and game-winning drives (32). At one point, he started 136 games in a row for a team that started all over every few years. Toward the end of that streak, Stafford played with broken bones in his back. His loyalty was lovable, too.
"As far as what kept me going, that was my teammates, that fanbase, the Ford Family, that coaching staff," Stafford said. "There are so many people that go into getting to Sunday and playing football. There are so many teammates who were battling just as much as I was and I knew if they were going out there and battling to play for me, then I needed to do the same for them.
"And that goes to the fan base as well. They had an expectation of what I was going to do when I was out there, what it was going to look like when they came to a Detroit Lions game, and I wanted to make sure that was their experience more often than not. As far as what Detroit fans are, they were extremely loyal, they were great, they were passionate. All the things you want fans to be."
Stafford was all the things they wanted him to be, except for one thing, the most important thing. He was not a winner. They're rooting for him to change that on Sunday, aided by the failures he's trying to leave in the past.