WATCH: Matthew Stafford Throws Love to His Four Daughters After Super Bowl Win
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Matthew Stafford’s no-look pass at the Super Bowl wasn’t his best toss Sunday night - his best came after the game. But first he would have to lead his third game-winning drive in the NFL Playoffs.
Two game-winning drives in the playoffs wasn’t going to be enough. Ending Tom Brady’s career wouldn’t be enough. Stafford would have to do more. And he would have to do it without a run game, or Odell Beckham, Jr.
This is the Matthew we’ve seen for a long time - if you bothered to watch. It is the one that has been buried in Detroit. He might now have been winning as a Lion, but Matthew has always been a winner. Sunday night he proved that. If he didn’t have a Hall of Fame career before winning Super Bowl LVI, he does now.
Matthew took the Rams on a 15-play, 79-yard drive that resulted the game-winning 1-yard throw to Cooper Kupp. Matthew Stafford was remarkable once more - this time on the world’s biggest stage.
"It will go down as one of the greatest drives in Super Bowl history," NBC's Cris Collinsworth remarked after the game.
Take that Joe Montana.
Stafford will look to bring the Rams back to the Super Bowl next season as well. According to FanDuel, the Rams have +1200 odds to win the Super Bowl in February of 2023.
Matthew’s no-look pass to Cooper Kupp was the stuff of legend. For years Matthew Stafford has been able to make any throw in the world - including no looks. But his post-game throws of confetti were with his eyes wide open. The four Stafford girls might not remember their father showering them with love in the form of multi-colored paper, but Matthew certainly will.
It was a moment that was not guaranteed, and one that was in real peril a few years ago when Kelly Stafford, Matthew’s wife and the four girls’ mother, had to survive brain tumor surgery.
“I was terrified,” Kelly wrote for ESPN in late 2019 about her diagnosis of acoustic neuroma.
No amount of practice or confidence prepares you for the possibility of having to raise your children by yourself. Suddenly, that was a very real possibility Matthew. There are no reps that get you ready for seeing the love of your life with wires attached all over the place while she battles for your family’s future in a hospital bed.
It was something Matthew could not control, and athletes are not great with that sort of thing. None of us are. With the competence of her physicians, Kelly got through it. But she would have to learn to walk again. She would have to learn to deal with the physical pain of getting off steroids. She would have to fight to get back to normal - whatever that would be. Matthew had always been uber talented. But talent couldn't save Kelly. She would have to struggle to win, and she did.
And all of this with extremely young children in the house.
Did Kelly’s experience give the Staffords a fresh perspective about life? Certainly. And while football is not life, it isn’t hard to draw a direct line from her struggle to live, and their decision to leave the Lions go to the Rams.
There would be pressure to win right away in Los Angeles, but not the same sort of pressure they had been dealing with. Matthew would have more tools at his disposal with the Rams; he would also be in the spotlight more.
Matthew Stafford had the wherewithal to be in the spotlight. From his high school days at Highland Park he had been a designated star. He had the talent to deliver, too. That was clear to me in 2006, months after he won the state title in super-competitive Texas.
My career covering Georgia can be split into this before and after: Before I heard Matthew throw a football, and everything else after that. And you hear Matthew throw it - perhaps experience it is the best way to put it. Him throwing isn’t like anyone else. I remember the receivers at Georgia having to get used to how powerful he was with throws. That was on them - not him.
Every quarterback I have seen since, Tim Tebow, Cam Newton, Aaron Murray, Joe Burrow Deshaun Watson, Jacob Eason, JT Daniels, Tua, Mac Jones, Bryce Young; whoever… the reference point for any of them is Matthew. How does that quarterback compare to Matthew?
The answer with nearly no exceptions is: “Not as good as Matthew.”
It took time for Matthew to get where he needed to go - and not just in the NFL. HIs freshman year at Georgia, he left Lexington with a face bruise that was indicative of how the start to his career in Silver Britches was going - not well.
But it healed up in time for him and the Dawgs to shock No. 5 Auburn in a blowout win on the road a week later.
From there he lived up to all of the expectations Georgia’s starving fanbase had except winning the national title. And the lack of a championship was used against him from that point until Sunday night. That happens with quarterbacks - if you don’t win it all you get punished. If you are as gifted as Matthew you get punished even more.
That’s why I was glad to witness him throwing the confetti on top of his girls Sunday night. It wasn’t the physical feat his no-look pass to Kupp was during the biggest drive of his life, but those love tosses were far sweeter for sure.
Thankfully Kelly was there to see it all, too.