Sherman premature to reject LA Rams QB Matthew Stafford HOF
By Bret Stuter
II: Performance
If you want to focus on the best of the best, then you have to compare apples to apples, or as close to apples to apples as possible. So onto the next category, how can we truly assess the performance of a quarterback? Well, there are two ways. One way is to focus upon their postseason performances and compare those. So let’s do that:
Hmmm. Stafford comes up as the best in the NFL in that method. But what about the other method? Well, that involves taking a broad view of a player’s entire NFL career? After all, is it fair to punish a player who comes in second place for 12 NFL seasons, simply because they did not have that one best season over the competition?
Careers count too
For that matter, isn’t that entire dependant upon the team surrounding the quarterback, as well as the competition that they faced? So how has Matthew Stafford done so far in his career?
Lost in the details is the minor fact that Matthew Stafford is now 4-0 in postseason play as an LA Rams quarterback. Why wouldn’t Richard Sherman, who has started this debate, acknowledge that fact? Is he truly of the opinion that individual statistics are truly the only statistics that matter?
What it appears to be is that Richard Sherman was very meticulous about which characteristics he cited for his gotta-have’s on his list of Future Hall of Famers. He handpicked those qualities that he knew that Stafford has been lacking. That is not objective criteria at all. It is the worst form of subjectivity possible.