Is Matthew Stafford being slept on … again?
It’s a question I asked in compiling the 2022 edition of my annual quarterback poll, and for the first time, it was turned on its head. In the past, Stafford popping up with votes to put him among top five quarterbacks in the NFL would represent a divide in how coaches and scouts saw him (favorably) vs. the general public. This time, the guys actually working for teams showed some like for Stafford, but not as much love for the Rams quarterback.
Yes, he has the elbow injury. And no Super Bowl champion has repeated since the Patriots won their second and third titles, nearly two decades ago, when Tom Brady was in his mid-20s. And sure, Stafford will be working with a new left tackle, a new No. 2 receiver and a new offensive coordinator.
Still, the fact that Stafford finished seventh in this year’s poll, down from sixth last year, and with roughly half the voting support he got in 2021, was a little jarring as I tallied up the points.
Mark J. Rebilas/USA Today
So consider this a reminder to everyone of what coaches and scouts always used to remind me, when Stafford’s virtuoso play was hidden under the Lions’ mediocrity—the guy remains, in the words of Rams coach Sean McVay, a bad motherf-----. I think, so long as his right elbow holds up the way the Rams expect it to, he’ll prove it again over the next four months.
Here’s why I feel that way with the 2022 season dawning Thursday night as the Bills visit Stafford and the Rams at SoFi Stadium: The best place to look for reasoning is the most obvious place, and that’s the signature play of Super Bowl LVI. On second-and-7, with the Rams trailing 20–16 and at the Bengals 46 against a defense that had allowed just three points in the second half and 3:06 left, Stafford delivered a no-look throw to Cooper Kupp for 22 yards that’ll forever be etched in Super Bowl history.
The really cool part, though, was the reasoning for Stafford doing it—McVay later conceded to me it was a “s----y play call.” The concept was designed to attack split-safety coverage and, after the snap, Bengals safety Vonn Bell dropped into the box, right where Stafford was supposed to go with the ball. In the moment, he had the wherewithal to move Bell with his eyes slightly to Bell’s left. Bell, for his part, actually did a good job of holding his ground while respecting where Stafford was looking, and was in position to play the ball.
But Stafford held Bell for just long enough, and generated just enough velocity on the ball to exploit a throwing window you could barely slide a credit card through to get it to Kupp.
And therein lies the real wow factor in what Stafford did. For all the oohs and ahs over the act of looking one way and throwing the ball the other, the intent behind it was far more impressive and rare—that Stafford recognized he was working against a stacked deck, identified where he was in trouble, fixed the problem by manipulating Bell with his eyes, and then pulled off the physical feat he did is, well, a lot of work to get done in three seconds.
“The thing that is so unique, that you should mention about Matthew—he manipulates coverage with an intent behind everything,” McVay told me. “I think a lot of times people get excited about just no-looking something to no-look it. There’s an intent behind all of the stuff where he no-looks guys. He has such great ownership, he knows, Oh s---, this concept is not good vs. this coverage; I got Vonn Bell opposite of where I want him to go, really where the coverage dictates he should be, for this to be successful. …
“So Vonn Bell was aligned in the location that play is designed to attack. It was not a very good play call for that coverage that [Bengals defensive coordinator] Lou [Anarumo] called. But Matthew was able to move him opposite of where he was originally lined up to open up the window based on his ability to manipulate and move coverage.”
Which is, folks, why it’s easy for me to buy into Stafford, again, in 2022.
Coaches will tell you that the difference between good and great quarterbacks in the NFL is the ability to win on third-and-long, to turn three points into seven in the red zone, and to play from behind. It’s winning on the margins, in a league where championships are won that way. It’s making a coach right, as McVay said, even when he’s wrong.
Stafford did that on the throw to Kupp, and the truth is he’s been doing these things—even if most people weren’t paying attention, as he’d routinely play in those 1 p.m. ET Fox broadcast windows for the Lions—for years.
Just this week, as I was putting the poll together, I was talking to a coach, one who’s never worked with Stafford, who raved about his ability to do just what he did on the throw to Kupp in the Super Bowl. And to bring that to life, he called up a play he remembered from the first quarter of Stafford’s third-to-last game as a Lion, a 46–25 Week 15 loss to the Titans, and FaceTimed me in to show me the coaches tape.
“This is some high-level s---,” he said.
These are the things that no one sees and, in this case, it’s not because it was another Lions loss in, yes, another 1 p.m. ET kickoff. It’s because it happened on a third-and-goal from the Tennessee 2-yard line in a game that wound up being a blowout. But there Stafford was, sitting in the pocket, looking right to hold Titans linebacker Rashaan Evans with his eyes, then firing the ball left, into a tiny opening down the middle just between Evans and All-Pro safety Kevin Byard, into the waiting arms of Marvin Jones for a game-tying touchdown.
Even the broadcast crew had no idea—they openly wondered if the Titans in coverage had simply lost track of Jones on the play, while the truth was Stafford was literally pulling those guys away from him.
The coach then excitedly pulled up another play to show me, this one from Week 4 in 2019, when Stafford, on a third-and-goal from the Chiefs’ 9, split no fewer than four defenders, blistering the ball past linebacker Damien Wilson and safety Tyrann Mathieu to its right, and linebacker Anthony Hitchens and safety Daniel Sorensen to its left, into the hands of Kenny Golladay for a touchdown that put the Lions up 23–20 late in the third quarter.
The Lions lost that one, too, but these are the things that had coaches, for so many years, asking “What if?” when it came to Stafford.
Last year, we got our answer to that, emphatically. And it feels like now, seven months after he proved so many people in the NFL right, those people who thought he might just be a modern-day Archie Manning as a Lion, we should be celebrating him a little more than we are.
Anyway, I can’t quite figure out why we’re not. On to the poll results …
As to the methodology in compiling the poll, which I’ve done previously in 2015, ’18, ’20 and ’21 (the past three for SI, and the first one for NFL Network)—the idea I came up with seven years ago was to ask league folks who they thought would be the top five quarterbacks at the end of the coming season. I wanted to ask after all the preseason games were done, so they had the most information possible. I wanted to ask for five because I wanted to make this about the elite, and that word gets thrown around too much.
Most of all, I wanted this to create a real league consensus on what’s ahead at the position.
So after the final cutdown last week, I sent out what felt like a million texts to general managers, head coaches, offensive coordinators, quarterbacks coaches, vice presidents and directors of player personnel, and pro scouting directors with all 32 teams—really, the people who know the most about the league at that position—asking them for who they think will be the top five quarterbacks in football when we’re all in Arizona for Super Bowl LVII.
I got 76 ballots back. And what I found was there was a clear-cut class of six guys gobbling up most of the votes, but more variance among first-place votes than I’ve gotten in the past. The guy finishing first overall for the first time didn’t have the most first-place votes. In fact, he didn’t have the second-most first-place votes, either. So that’s sort of the theme of this year’s voting.
Here, then, are the results, with a reminder that you get five points for a first-place vote, four points for a second-place vote, and so on …
Denny Medley/USA TODAY Sports (Mahomes); Tommy Gilligan/USA TODAY Sports (Rodgers); Mark Konezny/USA TODAY Sports (Allen)
1. PATRICK MAHOMES, CHIEFS
• 270 points
• 18 first-place votes
• Appeared on 72 ballots
Mahomes is the poll winner for the third consecutive year, but he does it in less convincing fashion than he has in the past. Mahomes appeared on every ballot after getting 41 of 63 first-place votes last year. And in 2020, he landed a staggering 49 of 53 first-place votes. So if this feels like a step back (with the bar being impossibly high), the feedback I got back was it’s because of the turnover on the Chiefs’ roster—and the volume of quarterbacks who seem to be in a really good spot going into ’22.
2. JOSH ALLEN, BILLS
• 265.5 points
• 24 first-place votes
• Appeared on 72 ballots
Last year Allen finished behind only Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers, a sign of where the league thought he was going. This is now affirmation of where he is. And going into 2022, the biggest question he faces is how he and new offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey will mitigate the loss of new Giants coach Brian Daboll. Other than that, it’s full steam ahead.
3. AARON RODGERS, PACKERS
• 211.5 points
• 23 first-place votes
• Appeared on 65 ballots
The reigning MVP finished first in both 2015 and ’18, fifth in ’20 and second last year, so this is actually a middling showing for him—but no indictment on where he’s at. My sense is he was left off 11 ballots in large part due to the departures of Davante Adams, Marquez Valdes-Scantling and a raft of offensive assistants. But the number of first-place votes he got affirms how many people think he’s capable of winning a third consecutive MVP, which is a pretty good indication of his greatness.
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4. JUSTIN HERBERT, CHARGERS
• 131.5 points
• Five first-place votes
• Appeared on 52 ballots
A few times this list has featured young guys jumping up the board—Andrew Luck was second in 2015, and Allen came in third last year, both landing a tick above Tom Brady right after Brady won a title. This year, it’s Herbert jumping from eighth into the upper echelon (along with the next guy on this list), there being a very real belief that once the Chargers get everything right around him, and they’re close, he’ll really take off.
5. JOE BURROW, BENGALS
• 111 points
• One first-place vote
• Appeared on 51 ballots
A year ago, coming off a torn ACL, Burrow wasn’t among the 14 quarterbacks garnering votes. He was playing for a franchise that hadn’t been to the playoffs in five years. And here we are now, with Burrow having led the Bengals to a Super Bowl, commanding universal respect across the league. He showed up on two-thirds of the ballots and was cited as the toughest omission by a number of guys who left him off.
Kim Klement/USA TODAY Sports
6. TOM BRADY, BUCCANEERS
• 80.5 points
• Four first-place votes
• Appeared on 33 ballots
The sentiment of many was summed up succinctly by one offensive coordinator: “I refuse to take him off this spot until he fully proves he’s not anymore.” Indeed, Brady threw for a league- and career-high 5,316 yards and a league-high 43 touchdowns last year. And he led the Buccaneers back from a 27–3 deficit in the divisional round against the eventual champs, without Chris Godwin and with a banged-up offensive line, before the Buccaneers bowed out. So some voters went on all of that. Others kept the 45-year-old off their lists after a weird offseason. He was on 48 of 64 ballots last year. This year, just 33 of 76.
7. MATTHEW STAFFORD, RAMS
• 24 points
• One first-place vote
• Appeared on 13 ballots
As I said earlier, this one surprised me a little. One GM cited Stafford’s elbow as a reason he left him off—“I just think once that starts, it doesn’t ever really stop.” My understanding, for what it’s worth, is that Stafford managed the elbow issue all year in 2021, and the Rams believe they’ve better gotten in front of it this year, and are hopeful it won’t be an issue. But obviously voters having concern over a quarterback’s throwing elbow is understandable.
8. LAMAR JACKSON, RAVENS
• 15 points
• Appeared on seven ballots
Jackson was seventh last year, so this isn’t surprising. But it is interesting that he was third after his MVP year of 2020, and has fallen into this area. And my feeling is a lot of the reason for it is to what degree his success is contingent on Ravens’ scheme, and his usage as a runner finally resulting in games lost to injury last year. I’d argue, when you throw the contract situation in with the rest of it, he’s as interesting a player as you’ve got in the league in 2022.
9. DEREK CARR, RAIDERS
• 12.5 points
• Appeared on eight ballots
Carr had strong support, showing up on more ballots than Jackson or Russell Wilson and even getting mention from a few who left him off. “Carr will have a good year,” said one voter who did leave him off. “Josh [McDaniels] will see to that. They’ve just got to protect him.” I also think Carr answering a lot of the leadership questions last year, through an absolute mess of a season off the field in Las Vegas, and getting the Raiders to the playoffs was a factor. And that he gets to play with Adams now wasn’t ignored, either.
10. RUSSELL WILSON, BRONCOS
• 12 points
• Appeared on seven ballots
Wilson was a strong second in 2020, showing up on 48 of 53 ballots. Last year he dropped to fifth. And now he’s on the fringe of the top 10. So, clearly, how the league sees him has changed quite a bit. But I will say the Broncos are pretty confident that you’re going to see things turn around quickly for the 33-year-old. And he does seem to have a solid supporting cast, both in coaching and the roster, around him in Denver.
11. KYLER MURRAY, CARDINALS
• 4.5 points
• Appeared on four ballots
Murray has his supporters in the league because he’s a unique player, and because of the challenges he can present a defense. Obviously, how he finishes the year will always be a question until he closes better (the Cardinals lost five of their last six games in 2021–22, including the wild-card game). But this year, how it starts with DeAndre Hopkins serving a suspension could be just as revealing.
T-12. TREVOR LAWRENCE, JAGUARS
• One point
• Appeared on one ballot
I wondered if Lawrence would be the wild card this year, where people would project a jump. That didn’t really materialize since he only got one vote. But I know others thought pretty hard on including him. “I think he’s the guy who takes the Burrow/Jackson/Allen type of one-year leap, yet is largely off people’s radar,” said one voter. “Really like the pairing with Doug [Pederson].” I kind of do, too.
T-12. TUA TAGOVAILOA, DOLPHINS
• One point
• Appeared on one ballot
I was a little surprised by this one, so I asked for an explanation from the guy who voted for him. “He hasn’t had weapons like this since he left Alabama,” he said, “and the offense will give him a lot of looks where his first read is open.” And to me, that’s the great thing about doing this list every year. It helps us look forward to what's to come at a time when so many different things, such as Tagovailoa becoming a top-five guy, are possible.
