His salary didn’t restrict the team in 2019, they might as well had paid him $50 million in 2019 and made his cap charge less in all the other years. With the $20 million they sat on all season.
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Most teams sit on some salary, they dont spend all of it.
Agreed, but if someone is going to bitch about one player’s salary being too high and a reason we were a bad team when there’s $20 million going unused… yikes
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That’s what happens when you have both a defense and a running attack that has been in the bottom third of the league for a decade.
Stafford is middle of the pack when it comes to veteran quarterback contracts. The narrative you’re pushing is simply not true.
Irrelevant. The team had $20 million unspent. Perfect time for a big cap hit.
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Everyone wants to point to that one bad call as the reason we lost. The reason why we lost that game is because we only scored 6 points after the 1st quarter. The defense couldn’t get off the field on 3rd and 4th down in the 4th quarter. Had we had a run game that year we would have been a legit SB contender.
A good defense and run game go hand in hand. The one constant with this team is we haven’t had a run game at all. We have never had a complete offense that’s why we have a history of going long stretches without scoring and suck in the red zone.
IMO, a RB should be a top priority the half ass effort Quinn has put into the position isn’t going to get it done. KJ has had a injury history going back to college and has been injured the last 2 years. We need another legit guy to pair with him instead of signing washed up scrubs.
Thanks for calling me dumb. You are a classy individual.
When a poster has nothing intelligent to say, I find they resort to name calling.
Last season he had the highest cap hit in the league.
That is a fact. A bit of research will help you before you call someone out for being wrong and finding out you were the one that was ACTUALLY wrong.
Quarterbacks:
- Matthew Stafford (Lions): $29.5MM
- Kirk Cousins (Vikings): $29MM
- Andrew Luck (Colts): $27.5MM
- Tom Brady (Patriots): $27MM
- Aaron Rodgers (Packers): $26.5MM
- Russell Wilson (Seahawks): $26.3MM
- Ben Roethlisberger (Steelers): $26.2MM
- Eli Manning (Giants): $23.2MM
- Cam Newton (Panthers): $23.2MM
- Philip Rivers (Chargers): $23MM
But that isn’t the excuse the posters on here want. That one call determined if the Lions would win 3 games or celebrate a SB title. It’s much nicer to live in a safe, fantasy world where the beloved team doesn’t suck but gets constantly screwed by a league that has it out for the Lions and only has one recourse on stopping the Lions from dominating the NFL.
The more I read on this board, the more it makes me laugh on how delusional some of the ideas about the Lions are.
It’s not my fault you weren’t blessed with common sense 
try not to be offended so easily, life is better when you take things in stride. Let me further explain what you fail to realize. If they used the EXTRA $20 million they didn’t spend in 2019 on Stafford’s cap number, his cap hit would be almost $7 million less oleach of the next 3 years. But ya know, math isn’t everyone’s forte.
I wasn’t wrong. Stafford’s contract is middle of the pack in average salary for vet quarterbacks. You weren’t factually wrong about Stafford’s cap hit this year, either. I never said that you were.
Your implication that Stafford’s cap hit somehow impacted the team’s ability to assemble a defense and running game, however, was quite wrong. If Stafford’s cap hit was #10 instead of #1 ($6MM less), who would they have signed with $26MM in unspent cap space that they didn’t with $20MM in unspent cap space?
Along those lines, how do the Vikes, Colts, Patriots, Packers, Seahawks, etc. manage to assemble defenses and running games? The difference is literally a couple of million difference in cap hit one way or the other.
The idea that Stafford’s contract is so financially crippling that the team can’t assemble a running attack or defense is ridiculous.
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That isn’t what I said, nor was it the point.
The point of bringing up the 2014 playoff game was to demonstrate that the one single time in a decade that Stafford had the thing that 70+% of divisional round teams have (a top 8 defense or ground game to support him), the team was one bad call away from playing in the divisional round where they belonged.
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actually I’ll poke the bear a little, the reason we lost that game (at least based on that play) was because of stafford, not the bad call. throwing the ball to the TE was the worst play to throw it to. it was obviously the #1 route on the playcall tree, because if stafford would have turned his head slightly to the right, calvin was WIDE open with only the safey to beat after he got the ball. but instead he threw it into the back of the lb covering the TE who had to turn around and fall backward to try and catch it.
You’re wrong on that account “worst play to throw to”.
Reason being that pre-snap movement showed who was covering Pettigrew. Pettrigrew ran underneath in the traffic and got the step on the LB that he needed. That’s football 101. He had exactly the matchup he needed and made a football play that 31 other QB’s would make (and get the flag for). It was a botched play by the refs and the head of officiating admitted it.
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? if that was the perfect play was his intention to throw the ball THRU the linebacker instead of leading him?
and while I agree ‘pre-snap’ can tell you where you should throw the ball coverages can change or other situations happen. I don’t think stafford was pressured. it was a poor throw. What happens if the TE falls down before stafford throws, does he still throw the pass since that’s where it was supposed to go pre snap?
Petti was covered for throwing the pass behind him. If that’s what the pass was supposed to be then he should’ve went thru his reads.
The TE was turned by the LB, which is PI or at the very least Holding.
The LB was beat. It was our play. It was stolen by poor officiating and admitted by the league.
It wasn’t just pre-snap. It was pre-snap and seeing the LB was beat if not for the PI. He made the right call and the NFL blew it.
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so if the LB was beat why did stafford hit the lb in the back?
and you’re right about the missed call, except it wasn’t PI. It was the holding before it. so if the LB hadn’t held petti, then petti would’ve even been further up the field and the pass would’ve hit the LB in teh ass instead, because he didn’t lead petti, he threw a backside fade with the defender behind the receiver which you don’t do. or it was a bad pass. either way.
You win.
Bad pass. Shame on Stafford.
FWIW, here are the Winning and Losing QB in the SB since 2008 which would provide info over the past decade (which is likely the most relevant).
08 - Roethlisberger / Warner
09 - Brees / P. Manning
10 - Rogers / Roethlisberger
11 - E. Manning / Brady
12 - Flacco / Kaperdick (on 2nd round pck contract so one cheap QB here)
13 - Wilson (on 3rd round pick contract, #2 cheap contract) / P. Manning
14 - Brady / Wilson (last year on rookie deal, was made #2 highest paid player in 15)
15 - P. Manning / Newton
16 - Brady / Ryan
17 - Foles / Brady (Wentz got them most of the way as a high 1st rounder)
18 - Brady / Goff (1st round pick, but technically cheap when he got to the SB)
So I see 2 “game managers” in Foles who has proven to not be that great without a great running game and defense, and Kaperdick who isn’t good, but was in an offense built around his talent and did well for a couple seasons. I think “timing” with Wilson’s contract and Goff’s, provided for playing in the SB with a QB on the cheap. I don’t think you could consider either Wilson or Goff “game managers.” Wilson since 2015 is highly paid and Goff was the 1OA pick.
With this snapshot I think my takeaway at least is that you “can” be SB relevant with a great running game AND defense with a “game manager.” But when you start looking for the “rule” as opposed to the “exceptions” it’s not even close. You need a franchise level QB at least, THEN one that is surrounded by health, talent a good rushing attack, a good defense and good coaching. Personally, I think we’ve had one of those things since 09 consistently and it’s Stafford. So that isn’t what needs fixing.
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There are 9 QB’s that have a higher AVG/YEAR contract. Where that fell with bonus structure etc. is giving you your “cap hit” number for one moment in time. Which is fine, but it’s not a “your right he’s wrong” situation. It’s how you view the data. Stafford’s contract has been surpassed many times over at this point, with Wilson making 8M per year more on average. As to guaranteed money, 5 QB’s are ahead of Stafford.
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yea that’s what I figured. you really have to have a built team in order to go to the ‘game manager’ route. I look back at dilfer and baltimore. I think anyone could have been a QB on that friggin team. I’d LOVE to have that team. I like stafford, and enjoyed the offense this year but I really would scrap a lot of that for a #1 defense and a ridiculous run game. But I love defense more than offense, especially with so many offenses looking similar.