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Patricia took a winning team with a QB in his prime and drove it into the ground. Stafford, 33 this month, didn’t have the stomach for another rebuild.
"Your division isn't going through Green Bay it's going through Detroit for the next five years" - Rex Ryan
The funny thing is everyone could have predicted that prior to his hiring. Every time they would show him on the Patriot sideline to hype up his job prospects every person in the world said, "That guy?!"
Posted by Mike Florio on February 4, 2021, 11:34 AM EST
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Quarterback Matthew Stafford reportedly didn’t want to play for the Patriots. Patriots legend Tedy Bruschi suggests the feeling is mutual.
“He’s not tough enough to play here,” Bruschi said Wednesday on WEEI, via Radio.com. “He’s just not tough enough. I don’t think he’s tough enough to be coached hard. Do you realize the mental toughness that Tom Brady had to have for 20 years to deal with Bill Belichick and that type of coaching? I mean, constant pressure every single day. Does Stafford sort of grab you as a guy who could handle that? I just don’t think so.”
Then came the hammer: “He went to Sean McVay and his little best-friend relationship and go have fun over there. That’s fine.”
It seems a little harsh, and a little bitter. And a little petty. It’s hard not to wonder whether Bruschi’s assessment is influenced by feedback he has received from past and current Patriots assistant coach Matt Patricia, who served as Stafford’s head coach — and presumably coached Stafford hard — for more than two years in Detroit.
Any NFL starting quarterback that competes against NFL-caliber defenses has significant mental toughness. Stafford constantly played through injuries. Stafford played for perpetually bad teams. Stafford played with a revolving door of coaches and a perpetual cloud of dysfunction hovering over the franchise.
Could Stafford handle playing for the Patriots? Sure. But that doesn’t mean he should want to. He wanted to play somewhere else. That doesn’t mean he’s not “tough enough” to play in New England.
Posted by Michael David Smith on February 11, 2021, 4:59 AM EST
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In 12 seasons since the Lions drafted quarterback Matthew Stafford with the first overall pick in the NFL draft, they made the playoffs three times. They lost in the wild card round all three times.
Now Stafford is about to get traded to the Rams, and although he says, “I never thought I would ever finish my career anywhere else,” he also acknowledges that he wants to go somewhere that he can actually play in big games and win.
“I’ve always wanted to play in those big games, I feel like I will excel in those situations,” he told Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press. “I wanted to shoot my shot.”
Stafford said he and his wife had a feeling a year ago that the Lions were probably going to be heading into yet another rebuild, and he figured both he and the team would be better off with a trade.
“To be honest, Kelly and I probably started talking about it before last season. It was one of those things where, you know, we were hoping that, golly, let’s go, I hope this thing takes off and we play great. But if it doesn’t, you just knew what was going to happen. They were going to tear it down and rebuild,” Stafford said. “And any time you switch GMs and a head coach, you know that they’re going to want to bring their own people in, and that’s going to take time. And I, frankly, didn’t feel like I was the appropriate person to oversee that time.”
So the Lions will get Jared Goff, a third-round pick and two first-round picks for that rebuild. And Stafford will find out if he can win a big game with the Rams.
Trickalicious - I don't think it is fair that the division rivals get to play the Lions twice. The Lions NEVER get to play the Lions, let alone twice.
Something from Albom's story worth noting. I really appreciated Stafford's willingness to play through injuries. He's a tough guy.
To that end, I ask about his injuries, about which Stafford has been notoriously secretive.
“I mean, this past year was bad,” he admits. “I had the partially torn UCL in my right thumb, I tore my UCL on my left elbow on the second to last play of the Houston game that nobody knew about, trying to stiff arm a guy. That's why I started wearing a sleeve on my left arm because I had all sorts of tape underneath it, just to hold it in place.
He said he never spoke of those or other injuries, not only in deference to his fellow players who had injuries of their own, but to the city of Detroit, where he knew people were dealing with much tougher challenges than trying to play a game with a multimillion dollar contract.
“For them it's not injuries on their hands and ankles and ribs, it's ‘Where am I going to get the money to pay the mortgage? And how am I going to get my car from here to there?’”
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