Stafford through his first 16 games

The TD/INT ratio is pretty good. Accuracy is a little down, but it’s a small sample size isn’t it?

If Aaron Rogers gets points deducted for sitting for three years then Stafford should get some deducted for 1.5.

I am not being overtly negative here, just fair. Honestly I think in a very morbid, round about way, Stafford has actually benefited from being injured.

1) While his injuries may have been fluky, I do believe he is even stronger now physically for having gone through that and less likely to be injured in the future.

2) Being forced to sit on the bench, and up in the press box allowed him to mentally learn the game and take a lot of mental reps to improve, much like Rogers.

3) Because the team struggled without Matthew they had a worse record then they oud have if he was healthy, allowing us to Draft players like Ndamukong Suh, Jahvid Best, Nick Fairley, Titus Young, and Mikel Leshoure that would otherwise have likely been off the board and on another team before the Lions selection. So when he came back, the team around him was much stronger and has a far more talented core to support him.

I know Leshoure is injured, but we all just have to write a rain check on that one for now, and judging by the Lions track record in recent drafts, I have confidence that he has a very good chance of being a difference maker.

I am looking at this year as basically the second year of playing time for Stafford, since he was hurt so much. I just hope he does as well as Dan Marino did in his second season. So far, Stafford is right on track.

He’s in the same class as Manning, Marino, Favre, Fouts. He’s a gun slinger, and he will be in the top 10 in all passing categorys by the time he retires.

If your not going by the numbers,

He will still finish as one of the best ever.

His first year he played like a rookie most of the time, forcing throws and making some [many?] terrible decisions. He had his moments [Redskins and the Browns] but overall he di not look very good.

His second year he progressed a lot. He looked very much in command against the Redskins and Jets, and the quality of his decisions and passes improved greatly. This is a very small sample size, but there was a lot of progress from 2009.

This year he has made another great jump forward. His accuracy is much better, and he also appears to be going downfield more often too. The communication with his WRs, especially Calvin, is outstanding. There are still thirteen games to go this year and it will be fun to see if he settles in and plays at this high level all year.

The title and idea?

http://www.freep.com/article/20110930/SPORTS01/109300432/1049/rss14

Gotta give credit where credit’s due…. I realize you compared different QB’s, but its still tacky to lead your readers to believe this was an original article.

are probably the most irrelevant. It’s really how he has improved and shown growth, which in Staff’s situation, he absolutely has.

Look at the teams around Rodgers and Brady when they came into the league. Brady had the benefit of a top notch defense to keep the games manageable. Rodgers was surrounded by playmakers and had three years of learning under his belt.

The Lions were an absolute mess when Stafford came in. They had just come off one of the worst seasons in NFL history and had a very low level of talent. The games were put in his hands early, which lead to a lot of mistakes. His “first 16” numbers are comparable across the board to the guy who came into a similar situation, Peyton Manning. In fact, many would argue that Manning’s situation was better because he had a top notch running back to work with, Marshall Faulk. However, Manning did all this his rookie season, where Stafford’s first sixteen were spread over three years.

When judging Stafford though, I throw all that out the window and look at what he’s doing now. First and foremost, he’s making good decisions with the football. He’s finding open receivers and exploiting mismatches. One of his two picks was off the hands of a receiver. He’s throwing the ball away when he’s in trouble too. Second to that, he has the physical tools to be successful. He has a canon arm, his deep ball is as good as anybody’s. He is accurate too, he can thread the needle through a tight hole with velocity. He has good feet and can throw on the move.

Where I think he needs improvement is in pcoket presence and touch on short routes, both are things that come with experience. One of the sacks he took last week was Robison coming flat out and it looked like Stafford never saw him, it wasn’t even the blind side either. That wasn’t the only time I’ve seen him not know a defender was coming on him hot. Also, it looks like he tries to rifle too many balls at recievers when he shouldn’t be. I’ve seen balls hit receivers right in the chest because they weren’t ready for a fastball to come in so quickly. As sharp as he is right now, he is only going to get better. IMO, Stafford will rival Rodgers and Brees in 2 or 3 years.