Is Matt Stafford ready?

The Matthew Stafford Era started off like it should have. He stepped onto the field to a standing ovation, read the defense and used his freakishly strong arm to find Keary Colbert standing wide open in a hole in the zone defense. Also appropriate was the fact that ball bounced squarely off of Colbert's hands while Lions fans just shook their heads. Despite two drops by Colbert, Stafford is, according to color commentator Desmond Howard, headed to the Hall of Fame. The praise was endless. He can make all the throws, he is calm under center, he doesn't act like a rookie, he also is mobile and is a natural for reading defenses. What Howard fails to see, however, is the truth. First of all it was a preseason game and he was playing against the second to third string. I can put up a 50% completion rating against third string Atlanta Falcons. Second, he seemed to trust his super bionic, non-human arm a little too much. He first throw was an aberration. Every other throw was into coverage. His laser-rocket arm (I am running out of analogies for his arm) bailed him out most of the time. Other times it didn't and he threw pick sixes to long haired linebackers. The decision making will hopefully (for all Lions' fans sake) come with time, but there are rumbles that he is going to play now. Wait just a minute with that. HOWEVA, he also had some nice throws. The pass to Colbert behind the corner and in front of the safety? Pretty. The touchdown pass even though the corner didn't even know where the ball was? Moist. That doesn't even make sense but that's the only describable word. As an admitted Stafford hater, he has eased my skepticism a little bit, but again we are one game in. Don't get it twisted; I still don't think a quarterback who underachieved in every single year in college even with first round running back behind him is going to be successful. Hey maybe his college career is good news, Joey Heisman dominated in college. Let's not forget about the other competitor, STARTER Daunte Culpepper. Before everyone gets their panties in a bunch about Stafford, Culpepper looked like an actual quarterback again. He dropped thirty pounds in one offseason. Thirty pounds! That's a jockey off of his back. You could see the increased mobility in right away, (he scrambled three times for 12 yards) and a 5/6 for 41 yards performance is a nice day at the office. He is also Scott Linehan's guy. Both were in Minnesota from 2002-04 and all Culpepper did was put up three consecutive 3000+ yard seasons and an 82 to 45 TD/INT ratio. He is only 32 years old, Favre is 67 and the Vikings are still begging him join their team. If Favre can still play then why can't Daunte regain some of the magic with some very similar pieces? Moss in Minnesota, Calvin Johnson in Detroit. A crappy defense in both places (30th, 23th, 26th for Minnesota from 2002-04) and the same offensive coordinator. Or maybe instead of jumping to conclusions after one preseason game, we should let them play, one or two more games where winning and losing doesn't matter before we decide who can lead the team to victory. Too late. If you want more meaningless breakdowns on games that have zero effect on anything, check out the Detroit third string heroes (and the villains) on my blog here.