The No. 1 overall pick of the 2009 NFL Draft, Stafford spent 12 seasons with the Detroit Lions before he was traded to the Los Angeles Rams, but he doesn’t expect a warm reception Sunday when his current squad clashes with his former team in an NFC Wild Card Game.
“I’m not expecting anything, to be honest with you,” Stafford told reporters Wednesday. “I was asked this question a couple times just by friends and family, and I think the biggest thing for me is just to go and experience whatever that experience is gonna be. I understand what the people of Detroit and the city of Detroit meant to me in my time and my career, what they meant to my family. I hope they feel that back, but at the same time I’m not a stranger to the situation and understanding that I’m the bad guy coming to town.”
Stafford is coming to town as an opposing player for the very first time.
He led the Rams to a regular-season win over the Lions in October of the 2021 season, throwing for 334 yards and three touchdowns during Los Angeles’ Super Bowl season. That was in L.A., though.
Stafford will play his fifth postseason game for the Rams — he played in just three during his dozen years in Detroit, coming away on the losing end in each of them.
He never played a home playoff game. It’s the Lions’ first time hosting a postseason game in 30 years, after all. And Stafford, who for so long endeavored to lead the Lions into prominence, will be striving to stop Detroit from celebrating its first playoff win since 1991 — the longest active drought in the NFL.
His performance and box score will be paired with that of his counterpart Jared Goff. Team game or not, the Goff-versus-Stafford narrative will be prevalent considering Stafford was sent to L.A. in exchange for Goff, two first-round picks and a third-rounder in the 2021 offseason. Stafford and Goff will be the centerpieces of the first playoff game in NFL history to feature starting quarterbacks who previously played for the opposing team, per NFL Research.
The history and histrionics are compelling, but it is just as much a chance for Stafford to be appreciated by a home crowd that will no doubt be jacked up for a long-awaited postseason game, but will see a familiar face who remains atop the club’s record books.
“I think the big deal is all the great things he did for that city, for that organization,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said Wednesday. “I think there’s a lot of appreciation on both ends. I know he feels that way, I know they do about him, it’s pretty unique to get the opportunity to go back there and play them in the playoffs, but I would imagine the appreciation that that city has for football and for the human being that he is, it’ll be where they’re saying ‘Hey, we appreciate everything,’ and then ‘We’re rooting for the Lions to try to beat the Rams.'”
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