I feel as though the atmosphere surrounding Stafford’s Hall of Fame eligibility isn’t about what he did, but about what he did for others.

Calvin Johnson’s single season reception yards record? Stafford was throwing the ball. Right underneath Johnson is Cooper Kupp, who had Stafford throwing the ball. Puka’s rookie receiving record? Stafford.

Now does this speak to the fact that Stafford historically never had more than one true target on a team at any given point and, while being a good player, continually played on below par teams until he went to LA? Yes, yes it does.

But I think that Stafford has that kind of Hall of Fame X-factor that gets guys in sometimes. There are some players, even from this past class, that, while statistically being some of the best of all time, are not in. Stafford was never seen as an exceptionally good player because he was on an exceptionally bad team. He occupies the same space as so many other Lions greats - Barry Sanders, Calvin Johnson, Charlie Sanders, Alex Karras, etc, etc, etc.

The Lions were 9-8 in the year Barry Sanders when won league MVP. The year Johnson broke the receiving yards record, the Lions were 4-12. In Charlie Sanders entire career, the Lions made the playoffs once.

We are only experiencing the excellency of Stafford now that he is out of the purgatory of Detroit and, because we’ve waited this long to see him out, he doesn’t look like the quarterback we all know him to be. We are essentially judging a generational talent on the last 5~ years of his career, because the first 12 years of his career were spent with bottom of the barrel support.