Former Lions teammates are living vicariously through Matthew Stafford’s Super Bowl run

Rob Sims was watching the NFC Championship Recreation on tv and will really feel his personal feelings beginning to bubble up.

For years, Sims blocked for Matthew Stafford as a guard on the Detroit Lions. Now, in retirement, he was watching his former quarterback do one thing they by no means might in Detroit.

 

He watched Stafford — together with his vibrant smile and scruffy beard — attain the top of the game with the Los Angeles Rams after languishing with the Lions. For Sims and so many others who performed with Stafford all through the years, his journey felt, in some methods, like their very own journey.

“Man, me and [Calvin Johnson] have had many conversations about how cool it’s that he’s on this place,” Sims mentioned. “Me and [Dominic Raiola] are like, ‘What we believed in was true. This man, he’s the true deal and he’s proving it.’

“It’s simply good for us, seeing any person that got here from the place we got here from, to go to that subsequent degree and show it.”

 

They watched in Los Angeles and suburban Detroit, cheered in Texas and Connecticut — and even in Paris. They performed alongside Stafford and shared a lot with him. Some have been co-captains and others shut confidants. All of them have one factor in widespread — a quarterback who as soon as led them reaching the place all of them wished to go.

The Tremendous Bowl.

“This is perhaps bizarre for folks to listen to,” former quarterback and present ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky mentioned. “It’s going to be like watching a member of the family.”

Orlovsky, who has lengthy been an ardent Stafford supporter, shouldn’t be alone. The group of gamers who labored with Stafford from 2009-20 in Detroit have been vocal about watching Stafford’ journey this season.

The quarterback, who turns 34 Monday, could also be a Ram now, however his ties to Detroit are deep. Lions followers have loudly cheered their former quarterback on social media. The native sports activities radio station in Detroit, which regularly bashed Stafford with the Lions, held a “StaffordCast” through the Rams’ first playoff sport — Stafford’s first playoff win. One of many co-hosts, who guess towards Stafford and the Rams, misplaced and needed to drink a shot of Jagermeister and mayonnaise.

That they have been nonetheless speaking about Stafford, who performed 12 seasons with the Lions, a yr after he was traded to Los Angeles exhibits the pull he nonetheless has in a city which hasn’t received a division title since 1993 or a playoff sport for the reason that 1991 season.

In some methods, Stafford’s run by means of the playoffs has been Detroit’s run, too. The Lions hope at some point they’ll get there. For now, some reside vicariously by means of his success.

Time zones away

9 hours forward of Pacific Time in Paris, former Lions vast receiver Kris Durham loaded up the NFL’s worldwide model of Recreation Go on Sunday nights to observe the Rams dwell. Durham and Stafford met at 16 and have become teammates and shut associates at Georgia earlier than spending two seasons collectively in Detroit.

It was Stafford who gave Durham the John Grisham e book “Enjoying for Pizza,” a few former NFL participant going to Italy to play professional soccer that finally grew to become Durham’s actuality. Durham has been with Stafford by means of rather a lot and made it a degree to observe at the very least components of 12 Rams video games this season. Durham stayed up till virtually 5 a.m. to observe Stafford attain the Tremendous Bowl. After the sport, he was a part of a brief FaceTime celebrating the win.

“It’s in all probability one of many solely those that I’ve been actually, actually near that has been in a position to play on this sport and probably win it and for it to be a quarterback, particularly after the final 12 months have occurred have been particular,” Durham mentioned. “I’m actually excited for him and I’m excited for [Stafford’s wife] Kelly and his household and simply have a small, minor half in it.”

Earlier this season, Durham traveled to Los Angeles — he was in the US for work on the time anyway — and went to the Rams’ sport towards Detroit and shocked Stafford. Stafford’s wife, Kelly, and their school pal Steven Cundari helped get Durham a employee’s uniform from SoFi Stadium.

When Stafford entered the suite following the sport, he walked by his 6-foot-6 pal dressed incognito and did a double-take earlier than realizing it was him and enveloping him in an enormous bear hug. Durham mentioned he’s planning on flying again to Los Angeles later this week for the Tremendous Bowl.

“It’s surreal,” Durham mentioned. “This man has been working for this his whole life.”

Seen it ‘1,000,000 occasions’

Essentially the most Stafford second of his whole playoff run got here in Tampa Bay, in what turned out to be the ultimate sport of Bucs quarterback Tom Brady’s profession. Stafford bought the ball on his personal 25-yard line in a tie sport with 42 seconds left.

Orlovsky texted his NFL Stay group chat and advised him he’d seen this “1,000,000 occasions earlier than.” Sims, who blocked for Stafford from 2010-14, knew when Stafford bought the ball again with that a lot time what was going to occur. Glover Quin, a co-captain with Stafford for a half-decade in Detroit, did too.

“Stafford has all the time proved to be good in that state of affairs and that’s why he has so many game-winning or game-tying or sport whatevers within the fourth quarter, proper,” Quin mentioned. “So if he bought that ball within the fourth quarter with that a lot time left, shoot, that’s proper up his alley. So I knew, oh yeah, Stafford’s becoming to make one thing occur.”

Lengthy-snapper Don Muhlbach, who resided two lockers from Stafford for many of their shared careers, was on a flight to Michigan through the Buccaneers sport. Half the flight was rooting for Brady. The opposite half have been Lions followers.

Muhlbach witnessed this 38 occasions in particular person, a fourth-quarter game-winning drive from Stafford (he has 42 all-time within the common season, tied for seventh all-time). He anticipated what occurred subsequent.

“After we had Stafford, we have been by no means out of something. He proved that loads of occasions,” Muhlbach mentioned. “Everybody’s all the time like don’t ever go away [Aaron] Rodgers or Brady an excessive amount of time — as quickly as they scored, I used to be like, there’s sufficient time left. This isn’t going to shock folks when this occurs.”

After Stafford unloaded a 44-yard completion to Cooper Kupp to arrange the eventual game-winning subject objective, the quarterback was operating down the sector screaming. Quin and Sims had flashbacks. In 2013, Stafford was miked up towards Dallas — in a sport the place Calvin Johnson had 329 yards receiving — and was operating down the sector frantically to arrange a play for a last-second win. In that state of affairs, he was waiving and yelling at sort out Riley Reiff to get set.

He wasn’t yelling at Reiff, who now performs for Tremendous Bowl opponent Cincinnati however is injured, this time however was nonetheless waving gamers downfield in a movement eerily just like the 2013 sport. In what was an early Stafford comeback second, he faked a spike and dove over a pile of Cowboys and Lions for a game-winning landing.

Right here, he spiked the ball to arrange a game-winning Matt Homosexual subject objective.

“It’s the identical factor,” Sims mentioned. “Been right here 1,000,000 occasions. Is aware of what he’s doing. Simply flashes of that’s fairly cool.”

This was the second Stafford obliterated the idea he can’t win an enormous sport. Knocking off the defending Tremendous Bowl champions on the street within the playoffs was a defining win.

As that occurred, Sims texted Stafford to congratulate him. Fifteen minutes after the sport ended, with a lot swirling across the quarterback, Sims noticed his cellphone gentle up.

“That man could possibly be doing something and he’s texting again, ‘I respect you,’ ” Sims mentioned. “These are the kind of relationships that we constructed through the years in Detroit and greater than something, he’s simply my boy.”

‘Want we’d completed it right here’

For over a decade in Detroit, regardless of all of the shedding and training adjustments and regime switches and incapability to succeed, Stafford by no means publicly blamed. He by no means overtly criticized. That mattered then and nonetheless does.

It explains why after each postseason Rams win, there’s been celebrations from a section of former Lions gamers on social media. They’d lived by means of the soccer ache with him — noticed the criticism he obtained — and beamed with what he was doing now.

“I do want we’d had completed it right here,” Muhlbach mentioned. “It will have been higher if all of us might have completed it collectively, however I believe plenty of his previous teammates are considering the identical factor I do. We’re all so blissful for him.

“He took plenty of stuff right here, honest or unfair, nonetheless you wish to say it.”

Former Lions teammates Sam Martin and Marvin Jones Jr. went to the NFC Championship Recreation. Many others watched from afar.

And so they’ve turn into followers of the Rams due to Stafford. Orlovsky’s children put on Rams jerseys and, as of final week, he was attempting to navigate whether or not or not he might fly from Los Angeles, the place he’ll be doing TV, to Connecticut for his children’ basketball video games Saturday after which again once more to observe Stafford within the Tremendous Bowl.

“As soon as in a lifetime, man,” Orlovsky mentioned. “It’s as soon as in a lifetime.”

Orlovsky believes if Stafford wins a Tremendous Bowl, it might cement an eventual induction into the Corridor of Fame. Which got here up final summer time when Raiola, Sims and Stafford all met in Canton for Calvin Johnson’s Corridor of Fame induction. As they have been hanging out and reminiscing, Sims mentioned Raiola urged the following time they’d be there was for Stafford’s induction. Sims mentioned Stafford’s response on the time was: “Man, I bought to get a Tremendous Bowl to do this.”

“And right here we’re,” Sims mentioned.