Rams QB Matthew Stafford to return to Detroit, a city that never left him

Matthew Stafford has been to the visitors’ locker room at Ford Field before, for the record.

Once or twice, he said, during some kind of event at the stadium. So when the Rams arrive for Sunday night’s NFC wild-card playoff game against the Detroit Lions, Stafford, the long-time Lions quarterback, will know where he’s going. Most likely.

“I hope I don’t end up in the wrong one,” Stafford joked Wednesday. “I do know it’s the same tunnel, both home team and visiting teams come out of the same tunnel. I think we have a little side alley we have to take. At least, that’s what it used to be.”

It’s been three years since Stafford was traded by the Lions to the Rams, and much has changed for both parties in that time. Stafford won his first Super Bowl with the Rams. The Lions used the haul they received in return for their former franchise quarterback to kickstart a rebuild that resulted this year in their first-ever NFC North title and the first home playoff game for the franchise in 30 years.

But as much as things have changed around them, one that hasn’t is the bond between Stafford and the city he called home for 12 years.

THE RUBBER HITS THE ROAD

To fully understand this particular relationship between athlete and city, you have to go back to the beginning, when Stafford first arrived in Detroit as a 21-year-old out of Georgia.

When the Lions selected Stafford first overall in the 2009 draft, Detroit was in the midst of one of the lowest moments in city history. The Great Recession in 2007 and 2008 had left scars across the country, but few cities were as disfigured as Detroit.

The automotive industry, the backbone of the city’s economy, had collapsed. Staggering levels of unemployment, foreclosures and fleeing citizens soon followed. A financial manager had been appointed for the city, which four years later would declare bankruptcy.

The Lions had mirrored the city’s woes, and in 2008 became the first team in NFL history to go 0-16. But the reward for that season of misery was the No. 1 pick in the draft with a player who was considered a generational quarterback talent as the top prospect.

“I think it gave everybody some hope,” said former Lions offensive lineman and Michigan native Jeff Backus. “Getting Matthew in there, it all came when things started to come bouncing back, we started crawling out of the recession. It was all happening at the same time.”

When Scott Linehan accepted Jim Schwartz’s offer to be the Lions’ offensive coordinator in the winter of 2009, he had other options. But he knew the Lions had the rights to draft Stafford, and his looming presence was the appeal Linehan needed to sign up to move to Detroit.

The arm strength and accuracy were there, as well as the build to sustain NFL-level punishment in the pocket. But there was something else, too.

“You combine all that stuff, that tangible stuff, with his intangible instincts. You talk about all these quarterbacks making these throws, looking one way and throwing another way like Magic Johnson out there, Matthew was doing that 10 years ago,” Linehan said. “He still has that golden arm, man. He can still make every throw. He always throws a spiral and he just throws people open.”

There was not much winning during the first two seasons of Stafford’s career, but he still won over Detroit with his willingness to play through injury.

Entering Week 11 of his rookie year, the Lions were 1-8, on their way to a 2-14 season. As they tried to mount a game-winning drive against the Cleveland Browns that weekend, Stafford took a massive hit that drove his left shoulder into the ground and left him crumpled on the turf. With one second left in the game, he staggered to the sidelines with a group of team doctors around him.

When the Browns called a timeout, however, Stafford shook off the medical staff, insisting he had to play the final snap. And with a touchdown pass to tight end Brandon Pettigrew, he lifted the Lions to victory.

“We had one play to win the game and wins were hard to come by that first year. He went in and basically threw with no shoulder,” Linehan said. “The guy’s fearless.”

“It’s just that never quit mentality and the ability to just put the team in front of some of the adversity that he was dealing with personally,” Backus added. “He’s just a team player; he’s always been a team player.”

PLANTING SEEDS

In 2011, Stafford and the Lions began to hit their stride. They won 10 games and made the first of three playoff appearances during Stafford’s 12-year tenure. And he had begun to become an important role model for the children growing up in the city.

“I was a big Matthew Stafford fan,” said Rams rookie defensive lineman Desjuan Johnson, a native of Detroit. “When I first got here that was probably the first thing I told him, ‘I grew up watching you.’”

Off the field, Stafford began to get more involved in the community that he had come to call home, where he stayed during offseasons rather than returning to his extended family in Texas.

As he looked for ways to build deeper connections with the city, Stafford’s agent reached out to SAY Detroit, an organization that sprung up in the wake of the Super Bowl in 2006.

SAY Detroit had taken over a former recreation center, and the then-mayor of Detroit thought the organization would be able to use it in similar fashion for community children. But SAY Detroit had bigger ambitions for the space, imagining it as an educational center that could provide one-on-one tutoring to children before allowing them to participate in a number of activities ranging from sports to robotics to audio recording to dance.

Stafford and his wife, Kelly, donated $1 million to the $10 million facility, the SAY Play Center, which officially opened in 2015. The football field at the center was named after Stafford, and he and Kelly remained connected to the children who benefited from the programs.

“They were present there, at the center. Kelly with her cheerleading background helped our cheerleading squad,” said Marc Rosenthal, SAY Detroit’s chief operations officer. “Matthew would go and just play pick-up basketball. The kids knew them. They would just show up unannounced and hang out with the kids. We had backpack giveaways where in the backpack, by the way, are little laptops. They did a lot of stuff under the radar that people didn’t know about. They didn’t need all the photos. They were just involved.”

“I think he realized his position on the team and in the city and he bought into it,” Backus added. “He was this pillar in the community. I think he planned on having a 15-year career, 20-year career or whatever in Detroit. It wasn’t just about football but supporting the community, being a part of it, being a leader, being someone kids can look up to, doing things the right way.”

Not everything in life works out like a storybook. Eventually, the time did come for Stafford to leave Detroit, requesting a trade after the Lions made another coaching change following the 2020 season. That request was granted in January 2021 as Stafford was sent to the Rams in exchange for two first-round draft picks and quarterback Jared Goff.

But a year later, as Stafford was in the midst of the Rams’ run to a Super Bowl title, SAY Detroit made an announcement: Outgrowing the SAY Play Center, the Staffords had donated $1 million toward the Kelly and Matthew Stafford & Friends Education Center, a facility that will open later this year.

“What athlete leaves town and leaves another chunk of money to solidify, I guess, their legacy?” Rosenthal asked. “They put it up there as a match, as a challenge and people just responded overwhelmingly to this. The outpouring of love for Kelly and Matthew in this town, they are truly in the fabric of this town.”

And Detroit is part of the fabric of Stafford’s life. It’s where he grew to adulthood, where his four daughters were born, where his wife battled through a benign brain tumor in 2019.

“I had a lot of experiences there over 12 years. All my daughters were born there. My wife and I went through things there that the team and the city, the town everybody supported. So I have nothing but great memories there,” Stafford said. “Obviously didn’t get it done on the field as much as I wish we could have. But the people that I was lucky enough to know and grow with are people that I’m still close with today and mean a lot to me. So it’s a special place for me and my family. And I have a lot of great memories there.”

RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON

He might have left Detroit three years ago, but the city remains on his mind, whether in efforts to give back to the community still or just in conversations around the Rams’ facility.

“It comes up in conversations all the time,” Rams coach Sean McVay says. “I think there’s just a bunch of memories. So much of his life was spent there.”

Surely a home playoff game at Ford Field was among Stafford’s goals during his time as a Lion. But he says there’s nothing bittersweet about being on the visitor’s side for this moment three decades in the making, as he’ll play anyone, anywhere in the postseason.

And while friends and family have asked, Stafford does not know what kind of reception he should expect as he returns to Detroit for the first time since being traded.

“I’m not expecting anything, to be honest with you,” Stafford says. “I understand what the people of Detroit and what the city of Detroit meant to me and my time and my career, what they meant to my family. I hope they feel that back, but at the same time, I’m not a stranger to the situation and understanding that I’m the bad guy coming to town. I’m on the other team and they don’t want success from me.”

Backus has more optimistic expectations for the greeting Detroit will save for Stafford.

“It’s the first home playoff game at Ford Field and there’s a chance that Matthew Stafford might be the winning quarterback and he’s not playing for Detroit,” Backus says. “I think our fans are going to give him a round of applause but at the same time. It’s going to be an atmosphere that I’m sure Stafford was hoping to have for a long time while he played here, but he’s going to be able to experience it as the visiting quarterback. It’s pretty cool.”