THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – Matthew Stafford know how lucky he is.
And if he didn’t, he only needed a phalanx of reporters peppering him with questions about his 12 years with the Detroit Lions and how they compare to what this season with the Los Angeles Rams, where he’s an MVP candidate on a 5-1 team.
“I asked for a trade not knowing anywhere where I was going to be,” Stafford said Wednesday at the team’s training facility. “There were a bunch of different spots where I thought I could go. I ended up here. I’m extremely happy to be here. I pinch myself getting the opportunity to play for this team with these players and these coaches.”
But Stafford, whose 16 touchdowns and 1,838 passing yards put him on pace for 45 TDs and 5,207 yards, refused at almost every turn to compare the two organizations.
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“As far as comparing it to Detroit, I’m not going to do it,” he said. “I just know that I’m having a blast playing a bunch of football with some great players and great coaches.
“I loved my time in Detroit. I loved all the different experiences I had. Some of them were tough. But they help mold me into the player and the person I am today. I’ve spent some real meaningful time in my life both on and off the field in Detroit and I really enjoyed all of it.”
Lions coach Dan Campbell on Wednesday said he expected “mixed emotions” from Stafford and Lions quarterback Jared Goff in their debuts against their former teams. But Stafford said he would try to tamp down any extra feelings and would try to prepare for Sunday’s game at SoFi Stadium as though it was any other game.
“Just go about my week, you know?” he said. “I watch the tape, I come out here to practice and try to execute at a high level, try to get as ready as I can mentally and physically for a game on Sunday.
“Am I going to know some of the faces on the other side of the ball than some people? Yeah. There’s a bunch of turnover as well. There’s a bunch of people out there that I don’t know that are on the Lions now, so I’m going to enjoy getting the chance to see some of those guys that I spent a lot of time and played a lot of meaningful football with. But at the same time, once the ball is snapped I’m going to do everything I can to play as good as I can to help our team win.”
Stafford said he isn’t close with Goff. But after the Lions quarterback struggled and was booed in last week’s home loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, Stafford could empathize and said it might bolster Goff.
“It’s happened to me there,” he said. “It’s happened to probably every quarterback in the league, you know, some time or other in their career. Sometimes, it’s motivating. Sometimes, you just don’t want to hear it and you want to go into halftime or at the end of the game, figure out what you did wrong and how we can go out there and be better the next time.
“But I know every player in the NFL is doing everything they can to go out there and play at a high level. Sometimes it doesn’t happen. It’s disappointing. I understand fans want to see a touchdown on every drive and all that kind of stuff. It doesn’t happen that way all the time. But as players we just kind of keep it moving.”
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.