Lions QB Matthew Stafford is on the verge of agreeing to a three-year contract extension that will keep him a Lion through 2017 and make him – for the second time in his short career – one of the highest-paid players in the NFL.
The 25-year-old already owns team single-season records for passing yards, touchdowns, completions and attempts, and he should break Bobby Layne’s career passing mark this fall.
He’s thrown for more than 10,000 yards the last two years, and joined Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Dan Marino as the only quarterbacks to top 5,000 yards in a single season in NFL history.
Stafford was a bit of a disappointment last season. After throwing for 41 TDs and over 5,000 yards in 2011, he finished with 20 TDs, 17 INTs in 2012. His mechanics have come under fire, and recently Ron Jaworski of ESPN rated him just the 16th overall QB. We rank Stafford 9th among our QBs this season with an ADP of the seventh round. He's just one of a group of QBs with big upside that you can wait on and take in the middle rounds if that's the strategy you choose. And, Stafford is surrounded by enough talent that could potentially land him in the top-five when all is said and done.
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