Matthew Stafford prepares for an LA Super Bowl but Detroit is still on his mind

Speaking of compelling Super Bowl LVI angles, Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford finds himself in the big game just one year after he asked the Detroit Lions, who won their last NFL championship nine years before there even was a Super Bowl, to trade him.

As he pointed out Monday, though, “Just because I came here doesn’t mean we were going to get to this point.”

For one, several teams were interested in obtaining Stafford, who had thrown for more than 45,000 yards and 282 touchdowns in 12 tough seasons in Detroit – but had not won a playoff game because his teammates not nicknamed “Megatron” were not so good. (“Megatron” would be Calvin Johnson, the Hall of Fame wide receiver.)

Sheila Ford Hamp, the Lions’ principal owner, was not so sure she wanted to get rid of Stafford either, considering that she’d sacked the general manager and coach two months earlier. She said she was a “huge Matthew fan.” So were the team and their long-suffering fans.

Stafford, selected with the No 1 overall pick in 2009, the year after the Lions finished 0-16, was no fresh talent – no guaranteed success in LA. He’d played every game over eight full seasons, often hurt, but missed the second half of the 2019 season with fractured bones in his back.

Besides, the Lions were not going to just give him away. But the Rams offered a bounty in return: Jared Goff, their 27-year-old starting quarterback, plus, of larger importance, first-round draft choices in 2022 and 2023 and a third-round draft choice in 2021.

Hamp OK’d the deal because, as she told the Detroit Free Press in October: “We want people to be here that want to be here and that want to play for us.” She understood why Stafford did not want to start over with another head coach.