Opinion: I Don’t Hate Stafford, I Hate Quarterbacks

After being taken to task for not slobbering all over Matthew Stafford like other Lions fans for winning a Super Bowl title, so I need to clarify something: Quarterbacks are overrated.

Let's start with a trivia question. We all know Tom Brady has seven NFL Championships rings. Why? Because he's a quarterback.

But can you name one of three players that have six rings? No, because they aren't quarterbacks.

I'll give you the answer in a minute.

But back to Matthew Stafford.

I'm happy Matt won a championship with his new team, the Los Angeles Rams. He seems like a good guy, a family guy. But why the obsession?

Do you know how many other players toiled long and hard for years for the terrible Lions, got traded and won a NFL title or Super Bowl for another team? Literally hundreds. Where was your Stafford-level love then?

I certainly didn't see any of this level of outpouring of support for Ndamukong Suh when he won a title last year for Tampa Bay. That's different you say, he was a dirty player and not a good guy.

Really? He donated tons of money to local charities when he was here, and when he played dirty FOR us, we loved him. So why no love when he finally got out of Detroit and won a title?

He wasn't a quarterback, that's why. He played down in the trenches, where obscurity lives.

Good quarterbacks are an asset, there's no doubt, but they're also overrated, and overpaid.

AND -- you can win a Super Bowl with a below average quarterback.

Anyone remember Trent Dilfer? He won a Super Bowl in 2001 with he Baltimore Ravens with a QB rating of 80-something. If you don't know, that ain't good. But the rest of the team was outstanding.

They won a title with the quarterback possibly being the worst player on the field. They were so good everywhere else it didn't matter. They even went five games without scoring a touchdown during the regular season.

Now, name me one team that had a weak offensive line that won a title. I'm pretty sure you can't.

Full disclosure: I played offensive line in high school, and I was undersized. I was pushing guys fifty pounds heavier than me around for an entire game. It was a dirty and thankless position. I got spit on, kicked, stomped on. My uniform was dirty and grass stained. I was kicked in the eye the night before my sister's wedding, and have a shiner in all the pictures.

Our quarterback? His uniform was clean and his face was unscathed.

So I do have a cognitive bias, for sure.

I would like to support my argument with a video that has been making its rounds on social media showing how good Stafford was in a key play during their game winning drive.

It's a look off pass that is nothing short of phenomenal.

But you know what I see in this this video? I see how great the blocking was from his offensive lineman to keep that middle open so he can make that pass. Look at 63 Austin Corbett and 55 Brian Allen (a former Spartan, by the way) push their guys off to the side so Stafford's sight lines are immaculate.

Contrast that to the Cincinnati Bengals last two plays when they couldn't even advance a yard because their O line was getting murdered. What good was their big time young quarterback Joe Burrow then?

I know I'm swimming upstream here. No one will ever praise an offensive lineman more than a quarterback, and quarterbacks are pretty and delicate and marry supermodels and get invited on talk shows and get invited to Disneyland and have rules changed to so they don't hurt their handsome features, but I'm holding out hope.

I'm also holding out hope that the Lions will win their own Super Bowl one day so we don't have to live vicariously through a quarterback who made over $200 million while he was here and asked to be traded.

Good on ya, Matt, but I'm not satisfied just yet.

So who are the three guys with six NFL championship rings?

Well, two are offensive lineman: Forrest Gregg and Fuzzy Thurston. The third is a defensive back, Herb Adderley.