The Los Angeles Rams enter the postseason with a 12-5 record and are set to face their division rival in the Arizona Cardinals on Monday night to begin their playoff run. There is of course some pressure on every quarterback to come through and perform well in the postseason, but no quarterback has more weight on his shoulders than Matthew Stafford. The former number one overall pick has compiled impressive statistics with 49,995 passing yards and 323 passing touchdowns. Stafford has also dominated this season statistically as well finishing third in passing yards at 4,886 and second in passing touchdowns at 41.
Matthew Stafford's NFL career started in 2009 when he was drafted to the Detroit Lions with the first overall pick after playing college football at the University of Georgia. Stafford was drafted to be the savior of a Lions franchise that had not (and still has not) won a playoff game since 1991. If you look at Stafford's credentials, you could say that Stafford has had an amazing career and has put up borderline Hall of Fame numbers. In his career, he has had nine seasons of at least 4,000 passing yards and six seasons of at least 25 passing touchdowns. He is also the fastest player in league history to reach the milestones of 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, and 45,000 yards passing.
However, despite these impressive numbers, Stafford has not had any success in the postseason throughout his long career. Matthew Stafford made three playoff appearances during his time in Detroit and he went 0-3 in those games. Stafford's Lions lost two out of the three playoff games the team appeared in by at least two scores with the only one score loss being to the Dallas Cowboys by a score of 24-20. The majority of people blame Detroit's inability to surround Stafford with an overall roster good enough to compete for his playoff struggles throughout his career, but this year he has a chance to fully show what he is capable of with the Los Angeles Rams.
After last season, the Rams felt they reached their ceiling with Jared Goff as their quarterback and needed to get better. They took a chance and acquired what was considered an upgrade from Goff as they traded the former #1 overall pick, two first-round picks, and a third-round pick to acquire Stafford from Detroit.
Matthew Stafford has everything with the Rams that he was missing in Detroit. He has a great head coach in Sean McVay, great offensive weapons which include Cooper Kupp and OBJ, and a great defense lead by superstars Jalen Ramsey and Aaron Donald. Either everyone will walk away from this postseason thinking Matthew Stafford truly was held back from reaching his full potential in Detroit, or people will think Stafford is a great quarterback who can compile amazing stats, but can't win the big games. The Rams have to win on Monday against Arizona and make a deep playoff run to truly make people believe Matthew Stafford is as elite as he is made out to be.