The Detroit Lions had never experienced the kind of continuity and consistency at the quarterback position that Matthew Stafford provided. Not in my lifetime, not in my father’s lifetime (who was born in 1960), so not in the entire Super Bowl era for an organization that’s been in the NFL since 1930. The closest names are Eric Hipple or Scott Mitchell, but they both only started 57 games respectively for Detroit—Stafford started 165 games for the Lions.
When Detroit honored Stafford’s wish to not go through another general manager and coaching change, it was the first time the franchise had truly bottomed out since he arrived to the league’s first winless franchise in 2009.