All eyes on the kid. Matthew Stafford filmed a “Monday Night Football” spot this summer, they shot it in one day, Matthew at a mall, at an amusement park, eating lobster, diving into an infinity pool. The premise: He’s going to be picked as the NFL’s player of the week. But as he’s about to party, Stafford, inflating a balloon, sees a TV and realizes there is one game still being played, Monday night, and Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers is putting on a show.
“Beware of your Sunday pride,” a booming voice says.
And Stafford’s balloon goes pop.
“It was a blast,” he says of doing the commercial, but he agreed to it for one reason: It was self-effacing. It portrays him as human.
And in that way, the young quarterback might well have been preparing for the 2012 season, which begins today with the Lions at home against the Rams. The expectations on Stafford are immense. His bar is at an all-time high. He has been a coming wave on the NFL horizon, a couple of impressive flips as he approached the shore. Now he’s like this huge curl, three years of experience rolling in for impact.
All eyes on the kid.
“Personally, I have loftier goals than when I started,” says Stafford, 24. “My rookie year, I wanted to play well, but I had a lot to learn. I know a lot more now.”
Despite that, Stafford wants no part of stripes he hasn’t earned. In a sports world where rookies suggest they have already conquered the planet, Stafford – with no playoff victories and only 30 NFL games under his belt – is acutely aware of being oversold. He admires how Peyton Manning has handled his image, poking fun at himself despite a Super Bowl ring, underselling rather than overselling.
“I don’t have that superstar thing,” Stafford says. “My rookie year, I was doing this commercial for Axe, the hair product, and they said, ÃÂTry to look like you’re the coolest guy in the room.’ I couldn’t do it.”
He laughs. “I don’t have that look.”
He has a better look
Remember the movie “Zoolander,” in which Ben Stiller plays a male model who names his facial expressions – Blue Steel, Ferrari, Le Tigre – but they all look alike?
That’s kind of Stafford’s deal. In person, as in interviews, as in bumping into him at an airport, he is pretty much the same guy: slightly wide-eyed, a tad goofy, easy-going, smarter than he allows, mostly polite and easy to make laugh. He’s the kind of kid who chuckles when you talk and says, “I know, right?” He’s agreeable, affable, analytical and, unlike some previous Lions passers, resolutely confident. The best quarterbacks have a swagger, but it’s not a receiver’s swagger, it’s not a linebacker’s swagger, it’s a gait all their own, a combination of energy and brio that all but shouts out, “Follow me!”
“What makes the great quarterbacks in the NFL, to me anyhow, is their inner competitiveness, not what they do on the outside,” Stafford says. “That drive to make sure whatever happened wrong last year doesn’t happen again. That’s why Peyton, (Tom) Brady, all those guys, their inner pride, their inner competitiveness makes them great.
“I feel like I have some of that. I don’t care about yards or touchdowns. I want more wins than last year.”
He pauses. “And I do feel I have a lot to prove.”
He has a better game
Stafford, by his own admission, is not a raw physical specimen the way, say, a Cam Newton may be. He is not the quickest or most elusive guy in the league. But the reason experts love him is his quick release, his rifle arm and, more and more, his choices in the pocket.
“The biggest difference since I started in the league is my decision making,” he admits. “Just being able to push myself to make the right decision every time. I’ve also gotten fundamentally better as well. I’ve really worked on that, so when it’s clutch time and those fundamentals need to be perfect, I can get the pass right in there.”
Such focus is the difference between threading two defenders or throwing an interception, laying the ball into an air pocket where only Calvin Johnson can reach it or overthrowing him by a step. The difference of an inch here or an inch there, a half a second, a blink.
“My drop is a lot better now. It’s quicker. I’m obviously thinking less – hopefully not at all. The more your mind frees up, the more your feet free up. You feel the rush in the pocket and you can avoid it.”
In his three years since being the No.1 pick in the 2009 draft, Stafford has experienced a wide swath of the NFL life. He has had huge weeks, he has been injured, he has led comebacks, he has coughed it up. But just as impressive is what he hasn’t done. He hasn’t copped an attitude. He hasn’t formed a cocoon. He has bought a house in the suburbs where he finally feels at home, but he still comes down to breakfast at the downtown hotel for home games – as he will today – still chit-chats with his teammates, sends a text to his family and friends saying he’s heading to the field, gets there four hours before kickoff, pulls a jersey around his shoulder pads and enjoys whatever music Dominic Raiola has chosen for the morning.
“Dom kind of sets the tone,” he says.
That’s the quarterback, remember, talking about the center.
But everyone knows the pecking order. The Lions will go only as far as Stafford goes. A super season by him, they will be a playoff team. And making the playoffs is all that matters in the NFL these days. “It’s a crazy league and a crazy time in the league,” he says. “The biggest thing is step by step. Just make the postseason.”
The “Monday Night Football” commercial was shot in California, partly at “an unbelievable house in Malibu,” Stafford says. It had an incredible view, an infinity pool. Stafford felt at home shooting there, but left with no thoughts of “Gee, I could be living like this.”
“That’s not too important for me now,” he says. “I enjoy where I am and what I’m doing. Football is really all I care about, winning games in Detroit.”
The season opens today. Stafford will behave like a superstar – or try to – only when he takes the snap. He knows that is where he will be judged in the end. Everything else – the adulation, the media, the ads, the hype – will be funneled through those three hours between the sidelines.
“In that ad,” he is asked, “who wins the player of the week – you or Rodgers?”
“Well, shoot, I hope it’s me,” he says, laughing. “That how I looked at it, anyhow.”
Ads are in the eye of the beholder. Performance speaks for itself. All eyes on the kid. Away we go.
Contact Mitch Albom: 313-223-4581 or malbom@freepress.com. He will sign copies of his new book, “The Time Keeper” (Hyperion, $24.99, 224 pages), at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Schuler Books in Grand Rapids. (For more on Albom’s book, released this past week, see his column on Page 19A.) Catch “The Mitch Albom Show” 5-7 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760). Follow him on Twitter @mitchalbom. To read his recent columns, go to www.freep.com/mitch.
All eyes on the kid. Matthew Stafford filmed a “Monday Night Football” spot this summer, they shot it in one day, Matthew at a mall, at an amusement park, eating lobster, diving into an infinity pool. The premise: He’s going to be picked as the NFL’s player of the week. But as he’s about to party, Stafford, inflating a balloon, sees a TV and realizes there is one game still being played, Monday night, and Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers is putting on a show.
“Beware of your Sunday pride,” a booming voice says.
And Stafford’s balloon goes pop.
“It was a blast,” he says of doing the commercial, but he agreed to it for one reason: It was self-effacing. It portrays him as human.
And in that way, the young quarterback might well have been preparing for the 2012 season, which begins today with the Lions at home against the Rams. The expectations on Stafford are immense. His bar is at an all-time high. He has been a coming wave on the NFL horizon, a couple of impressive flips as he approached the shore. Now he’s like this huge curl, three years of experience rolling in for impact.
All eyes on the kid.
“Personally, I have loftier goals than when I started,” says Stafford, 24. “My rookie year, I wanted to play well, but I had a lot to learn. I know a lot more now.”
Despite that, Stafford wants no part of stripes he hasn’t earned. In a sports world where rookies suggest they have already conquered the planet, Stafford – with no playoff victories and only 30 NFL games under his belt – is acutely aware of being oversold. He admires how Peyton Manning has handled his image, poking fun at himself despite a Super Bowl ring, underselling rather than overselling.
“I don’t have that superstar thing,” Stafford says. “My rookie year, I was doing this commercial for Axe, the hair product, and they said, ÃÂTry to look like you’re the coolest guy in the room.’ I couldn’t do it.”
He laughs. “I don’t have that look.”
He has a better look
Remember the movie “Zoolander,” in which Ben Stiller plays a male model who names his facial expressions – Blue Steel, Ferrari, Le Tigre – but they all look alike?
That’s kind of Stafford’s deal. In person, as in interviews, as in bumping into him at an airport, he is pretty much the same guy: slightly wide-eyed, a tad goofy, easy-going, smarter than he allows, mostly polite and easy to make laugh. He’s the kind of kid who chuckles when you talk and says, “I know, right?” He’s agreeable, affable, analytical and, unlike some previous Lions passers, resolutely confident. The best quarterbacks have a swagger, but it’s not a receiver’s swagger, it’s not a linebacker’s swagger, it’s a gait all their own, a combination of energy and brio that all but shouts out, “Follow me!”
“What makes the great quarterbacks in the NFL, to me anyhow, is their inner competitiveness, not what they do on the outside,” Stafford says. “That drive to make sure whatever happened wrong last year doesn’t happen again. That’s why Peyton, (Tom) Brady, all those guys, their inner pride, their inner competitiveness makes them great.
“I feel like I have some of that. I don’t care about yards or touchdowns. I want more wins than last year.”
He pauses. “And I do feel I have a lot to prove.”
He has a better game
Stafford, by his own admission, is not a raw physical specimen the way, say, a Cam Newton may be. He is not the quickest or most elusive guy in the league. But the reason experts love him is his quick release, his rifle arm and, more and more, his choices in the pocket.
“The biggest difference since I started in the league is my decision making,” he admits. “Just being able to push myself to make the right decision every time. I’ve also gotten fundamentally better as well. I’ve really worked on that, so when it’s clutch time and those fundamentals need to be perfect, I can get the pass right in there.”
Such focus is the difference between threading two defenders or throwing an interception, laying the ball into an air pocket where only Calvin Johnson can reach it or overthrowing him by a step. The difference of an inch here or an inch there, a half a second, a blink.
“My drop is a lot better now. It’s quicker. I’m obviously thinking less – hopefully not at all. The more your mind frees up, the more your feet free up. You feel the rush in the pocket and you can avoid it.”
In his three years since being the No.1 pick in the 2009 draft, Stafford has experienced a wide swath of the NFL life. He has had huge weeks, he has been injured, he has led comebacks, he has coughed it up. But just as impressive is what he hasn’t done. He hasn’t copped an attitude. He hasn’t formed a cocoon. He has bought a house in the suburbs where he finally feels at home, but he still comes down to breakfast at the downtown hotel for home games – as he will today – still chit-chats with his teammates, sends a text to his family and friends saying he’s heading to the field, gets there four hours before kickoff, pulls a jersey around his shoulder pads and enjoys whatever music Dominic Raiola has chosen for the morning.
“Dom kind of sets the tone,” he says.
That’s the quarterback, remember, talking about the center.
But everyone knows the pecking order. The Lions will go only as far as Stafford goes. A super season by him, they will be a playoff team. And making the playoffs is all that matters in the NFL these days. “It’s a crazy league and a crazy time in the league,” he says. “The biggest thing is step by step. Just make the postseason.”
The “Monday Night Football” commercial was shot in California, partly at “an unbelievable house in Malibu,” Stafford says. It had an incredible view, an infinity pool. Stafford felt at home shooting there, but left with no thoughts of “Gee, I could be living like this.”
“That’s not too important for me now,” he says. “I enjoy where I am and what I’m doing. Football is really all I care about, winning games in Detroit.”
The season opens today. Stafford will behave like a superstar – or try to – only when he takes the snap. He knows that is where he will be judged in the end. Everything else – the adulation, the media, the ads, the hype – will be funneled through those three hours between the sidelines.
“In that ad,” he is asked, “who wins the player of the week – you or Rodgers?”
“Well, shoot, I hope it’s me,” he says, laughing. “That how I looked at it, anyhow.”
Ads are in the eye of the beholder. Performance speaks for itself. All eyes on the kid. Away we go.
Contact Mitch Albom: 313-223-4581 or malbom@freepress.com. He will sign copies of his new book, “The Time Keeper” (Hyperion, $24.99, 224 pages), at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Schuler Books in Grand Rapids. (For more on Albom’s book, released this past week, see his column on Page 19A.) Catch “The Mitch Albom Show” 5-7 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760). Follow him on Twitter @mitchalbom. To read his recent columns, go to www.freep.com/mitch.
Pull Quote:”Football is really all I care about, winning games in Detroit.”
Matthew
Stafford,
Lions quarterback
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