Tick-tock, tick-tock.
It's only a matter of time before the Lions trade Matthew Stafford, maybe a matter of days. There's a growing sense around the NFL that Detroit gets it done at some point in the next week.
Dan Orlovsky, who's been on this from the start, is already dropping clues on Twitter, like on Thursday night when he suggested Stafford will be on the move "inside of a week-max." And then on Friday morning when he said in a since-deleted Tweet, "I got a feeling we bout to get some fireworks today."
And here was Adam Schefter on the Ross Tucker Football Podcast on Friday afternoon:
"I’ve always thought that the Matthew Stafford trade could get done by the Super Bowl. I always thought that. We are nine days away from the Super Bowl. They’ve been talking. So to me, it could happen at any point -- today, tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. But I don’t think that’s a February 26 deal, so to speak."
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The Lions essentially have until March 21 to facilitate a trade, the day before Stafford is due a $10 million roster bonus. But talks are already heating up; a third of the league has reportedly contacted Detroit since Stafford was made available last weekend. It sounds like new general manager Brad Holmes would like to get this done as quickly as possible to set up the rest of a crucial offseason.
"When it heats up and when it happens, we’ll see," said Schefter. "I think Stafford is in play from this moment on, basically."