With Matt Stafford’s new contract extension in Detroit, the price of starting QB’s remains on a linear glide path into the stratosphere. They aren’t getting cheaper. And Bruce Allen’s “fair offer” to Kirk Cousins back in July, looks even smaller and more pathetic by the minute.
Stafford’s new deal has $92 million in guarantees (a new record) and nearly $50 million at signing. While if true, it does mean Allen’s boast that Kirk’s $52 million at signing would have been a record, but that’s all that was essentially guaranteed (the $72M “for injury” part is pure bullsmoke).
There’s a lot to like about Stafford. He’s a big unit missile launcher, and a baller who love to make throws with that cannon arm. He also will play in near excruciating pain.
But I don’t think he’s the intuitive pocket magician that fellow big unit QB Ben Rothlisberger is, and his career 61% completion percentage is low for an “elite” guy.
And then of course, there are the low-hanging Twitter apples you can throw at Stafford like this. “That much money for a guy who HAS FEWER PLAYOFF WINS THAN THE RIGHT FIELDER FOR THE ST. LUCIE METS!
Zing. Got him.
Or the fact that Stafford has only 1 win in his CAREER on the road against a winning team. (Internet stat, I haven’t verified it. Could be as fake as the shark swimming on the Houston highway photo). He’s 51-58 career, and 0-3 in the playoffs. And of course, he’s had to carry the burden of The Curse of Bobby Layne and the Curse of Jim Caldwell.
But still, I doubt any Lions fan is yearning to head out on a search for the “next” good QB, while suffering the incompetent endzone ramblings of the next Dan Orlovsky. Stafford’s expensive, because QB’s are the price of doing business in the NFL.
He plays. He starts. He’s good. Pay him. It’s not much more complicated than that.
With Kirk, the problem is that he doesn’t have a superpower. He’s not a ninja like Rodgers, a supercomputer like Brady, doesn’t have the cobra-quick release of Drew Brees, or the lumbering brilliance of Big Ben.
He’s just GOOD, and that should be GOOD ENOUGH because the option is Nate Sudfeld and reaching for a top-15 QB in next May’s draft. In otherwords, QB hell. The Redskins have been consistently behind the curve on getting Kirk under wraps for the foreseeable future (say 4 years) and with every deal like this, they are even more hopelessly behind.
At this point, the only way for everybody to save face – the Redskins, Kirk, Bruce – is for this team to win 11 games one way or another. 10 plus a playoff game. Or 11 outright. That should do it. Nobody gonna walk away from an 11-win NFL party. But anything short of that, and I think it all unravels next winter amid finger pointing and second guessing. Kirk will be a Niner, or a Jet, or a Bill, or a Ram, or a Cardinal, or a Brown, or a Bronco, or a Texan, or a Jaguar, or a Viking. He might not score as much money as he was shooting for with the Redskins, but I don’t think he’ll care.
His new team will be thrilled to have him. And Kirk will finally feel wanted.
VONTAZE BURFICT SUSPENSION
I’m troubled by this one, I’ll be honest. On the one hand, Burfict is stone cold football thug, who not only has no regard for the health or brain safety of his fellow players, but is also a liability to his team when it comes winning games. He singlehandedly threw away the Bengals win over the Steelers in the 2016 playoffs. That said, when you take what looked to be a legal hit, and convert into a massive 5-game suspension, you open a pandora’s box of problems in the future. How many “priors” do you need to have as a player, for the league to convert a technically legal hit that looked nasty, into a significant suspension? For a league that makes rules on top of rules, they also find ways to ignore those rules when it suits their agenda. At this point, the NFL should just say: “If we don’t like a hit you deliver, we might suspend you.” At least that, would be honest.
JOEL OSTEEN AND HIS ARK
The term “fake news” is too often thrown around, and used without context or explanation. Sometimes “fake” news is really “non” news or just incomplete news, or even beside-the-point news. Or it’s just social media gun-jumping that gets accepted as fact. Turns out that Osteen’s church really IS flooded (like the rest of Houston) and that they plan to assist in recovery and shelter efforts as soon as is reasonably possible. So yeah, so much for that Joel Osteen is the Devil narrative that seemed like such a hot-take about 5 minutes ago.
STAT OF THE DAY
The Detroit Lions last had a 100 yard rusher in a game, in Week 13 of 2013. It was Reggie Bush.
TOP THREE TUESDAY
Top 3 Things I Can Smell From Long Distance
3 Burning cigarette
2 Lettuce on my taco
1 Mustard
Top 3 Guys I’d Like to Drink Beers With From Deadliest Catch
3 Andy Hillstrand
2 Wild Bill
1 Freddie Mogatai
Top 3 Things Simple Things That Would Make the World A Way Better Place
3 The internet would close for 6 hours a day
2 More people would let other motorists cut in/make left turns
1 Free Parking
Top 3 Patriot Myths About Their Success
3 They never make personnel mistakes
2 Brady has never had any weapons
1 They cheat (Good because they are good.. they cheat because they are ruthless a-holes)
Top 3 Redskins One-Year Redskins Wonders
3 Daryl Gardner (15 games 4 sacks from DT pos)
2 Timmy Smith
1 Mark Rypien
Top 3 Mike Rizzo Moves
3 Drafting Anthony Rendon 6th overall out of Rice
2 Acquiring and Extending Gio Gonzales
1 Joe Ross and Trea Turner for Stephen Sousa Jr. and low level arm
Top 3 Everyday Things You Should Never Skimp On
3 – Quality desk chair
2 – Mattress
1 – Air conditioning
4 Comments
Pk
The correlation between team rushing yards and playoff appearance is strong.
You can have your gunslinger, but I would take a Bettis or Beastmode or Jim Brown over all but the best Qb.
http://m.espn.com/nfl/aggregates?groupId=9&season=2016&seasonType=2&split=0&statgroup=rushing&category=rushingYards
Nate
Top three annoying things about the Human Body:
3. Toenails. They serve no purpose and you have to maintain them.
2. Ass. I’m seriously considering installing a bidet.
1. Skin Tabs. As I get older those things are popping up everywhere and they hurt like hell.
Ted Nuggent
Matt Stanford is the only QB in the entire history of the Detroit Lions organization who has two 10 win seasons. Is he elite, no but he is a top ten QB and worth the money
Leo
I’d love to stamp a big “Truth” logo on your “Top 3 Everyday Things You Should Never Skimp On” section!