Matthew Stafford\u2019s NFL career began in 2009. He\u2019s now in his 17th season. And he has never \u2014 not once, not ever \u2014 had a record above .500.<\/p>\n
That can change on Sunday against the Seahawks.<\/p>\n
Stafford has 231 regular-season starts. He\u2019s 115-115-1. With a win against Seattle in start No. 232, Stafford would have the most starts before pushing his record above .500 in NFL history.<\/p>\n
The reason for the unusual record is obvious. He spent the first 12 years of his career with the Lions, at a time when the Lions were a far cry from what the Lions currently are.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s amazing, in hindsight, that he stayed with the Lions as long as he did. But that\u2019s how he is. Never complain. Show up. Do the job. Go home. Do it again. Never complain.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s gotten his reward in recent years. A Super Bowl ring in 2021. Maybe another one this year. A first-ballot, no-question, drop-the-mic Hall of Fame enshrinement.<\/p>\n
And maybe a rightful spot in the conversation as one of the best to ever do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matthew Stafford\u2019s NFL career began in 2009. He\u2019s now in his 17th season. And he has never \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-292427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}