Four starting quarterbacks remain in this year's NFL playoffs. One has thrown as many regular-season passes as you have over the last two years. One is in the midst of a remarkable career rehabilitation. One is already getting fitted for GOAT status after just two seasons.
And then there's Matthew Stafford. Depending on your perspective, he's either bound straight for Canton or a fortunate stat-padder, no in-between. And what he does this weekend in the NFC championship is going to give one side of those perspectives a whole lot of new ammunition.
Stafford is absolutely a member of the Hall of Very Good, but Hall of Fame? That's where it gets tricky, and the first task when considering Stafford is to consider what exactly your standards are for the Hall of Fame. Should the Hall of Fame select just a tiny handful of players from every generation, or should the Hall expand and contract based on the talent under scrutiny? Should players be compared to their peers, or across all of NFL history?
You can frame the debate on Stafford however you want to achieve your desired outcome — Hall of Famer or close-but-not-quite. Let's dig in on some of the philosophical questions that accompany every Hall of Fame application:
Was he among the best quarterbacks of his generation?
It's Stafford's bad luck to be playing quarterback in the absolute Golden Era for quarterbacking. It's tough to get much notice for your play when you're in the mix with Brady, Manning, Rodgers and Mahomes. Stafford is firmly in the second tier of quarterbacks — Matt Ryan, Philip Rivers, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson — and an unquestioned star, but is that enough to get him to Canton?
Was he among the best quarterbacks of any given season?
This one, we can track. Outside of two seasons (2023 and 2025) Stafford hasn't received any meaningful support from voters assessing his year-to-year credentials. He only has one notable MVP finish (8th in 2023, though he could win this year) and just three Pro Bowl seasons in his 17 years in the league. Again, it's tough when you're fighting for elbow room against at least two of the heads on the Mount Rushmore of QBs, but still … isn't that what a Hall of Famer is supposed to do?
Did he win games?
Here's where we have to start applying some retroactive grace to Stafford's career. He labored in Detroit for 12 long years, a stretch where Detroit only reached the playoffs three times and didn't win a single game. Stafford led the league in game-winning drives in three of these seasons, in part because that was the only way the Lions could win. Once Stafford hit LA, of course, things changed in a hurry to the tune of a Super Bowl victory in his very first season there.
His final tally in Detroit: 74-90-1 (.452)
His running tally in LA: 46-28 (.622)
Did he win big games?
This is why the 2025 season is so important for Stafford's Hall of Fame case. Two Super Bowl wins in five seasons, combined with his massive stats, ought to be more than enough to usher Stafford into the Hall eventually. Stafford doesn't yet have the epic Big Moment that Eli Manning claims, but two rings make a pretty good case all their own.
Did he put up big numbers?
Absolutely. Stafford currently ranks sixth all-time in passing yardage, and he could pass Aaron Rodgers by Halloween if Rodgers retires. Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning are likely out of reach, but Brett Favre at No. 4 could be in play with two more decent seasons. Stafford also ranks 7th in career touchdowns — Rivers is two ahead of him — and in the top 10 in passes both attempted and completed. In technical terms: the dude has spent his career slinging it.
The knock on Stafford's numbers, of course, is that so many of them came in the service of futile causes, both in games and seasons already lost. "Stat Padford" is a wicked nickname that nonetheless serves its purpose. If Detroit had been a relevant team in competitive games and seasons, would Stafford's gaudy numbers still look the same?
Once you get past Brady and Manning, Hall of Fame candidacies are basically campaigns, and campaigns are won and lost based on storytelling. Stafford is setting up for a perfect narrative arc here — laboring for a decade-plus on a terrible team, then exploding once he got some talent around him. Going from QB obscurity to a late-career MVP and Super Bowl appearances would be an easy story to tell for a Hall of Fame campaign.
So there you go. Matt Stafford might just have a whole lot more to play for this weekend than just a single season's success. Football immortality might just be on the line.
