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Former Detroit Lions and current Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford is making a bold comment after his MVP win.
Matthew Stafford, of course, as the franchise quarterback for the Detroit Lions from 2009 to 2020, and after leaving the franchise to go to the West Coast and play for the Los Angeles Rams, he became a Super Bowl-winning signal-caller. Now, Stafford has announced that he’s returning to the NFL for another season in 2026.
Stafford was nominated for the 2026 NFL MVP at the NFL Honors event on Thursday, February 5, and he won. But, Stafford winning the award took a backseat to his announcement at the event. After the win, he announced that he’s coming back for another season.
Now, Stafford is opening up about the 2025-26 season. He and the Rams played their final game of the season with a loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, January 25, which ended with a 31-27 final score and no trip to the Super Bowl. Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay described the feeling as “pretty numb” after the game and said that “the finality of all of it when you don’t allow yourself to even think about anything other than just advancing, I felt like we were going to be the team on that podium and we weren’t.”
Matthew Stafford Talks Seattle Seahawks and Super Bowl Victory
Stafford is opening up about the season and the Seahawks winning Super Bowl LX. In the game, Seattle beat New England in a 29-13 win, Stafford says he expected that to happen. He even says that he predicted the Patriots‘ offense would crumble under the Seahawks.
“It went about as I expected, to be honest with you,” Stafford said on SiriusXM’s “Let’s Go” podcast. “That’s kind of how I thought the game was going to go. New England’s defense kept them in it for as long as they could.”
He added, “And really, Seattle moved the ball well, just didn’t score down there inside the – once they crossed the 50, stalled out a couple of times. I think it could have been not as close as it was, really.”
Stafford also said that as he watched the game, he “knew what was coming a lot of the time.” That’s a pretty wild assertion, but Stafford knows football.
“I’ve watched, obviously, a ton of Seattle tape, so I knew what was coming a lot of the time,” he said on the show. “And I had watched some crossover tape with New England’s offense, so I had a little bit of a feel for that.”
He added, “I did not know a whole lot about what New England’s defense was doing the whole year, but they played well. It was fun to watch. That’s about how I thought it was going to go.”
Matthew Stafford Over Drake Maye for MVP
Stafford was up against Drake Maye, Josh Allen, Trevor Lawrence and Christian McCaffrey for MVP. In the end, he won, and he topped it off by accepting the award and announcing that he’s not retiring.
The Most Valuable Player, by definition, according to Dictionary.com, is “an accolade or award, originally used in team sports to recognize one player for game-changing excellence, and also used outside of sports to recognize excellence in the contributions of an individual to a group effort.”
Anne Erickson is an award-winning reporter for Heavy Sports covering the NFL, NBA and college football. Anne Erickson has years of experience covering the NFL and additional sports, and her work has been published via ESPN, Fox Sports and more. She has interviewed some of the biggest names in sports, including Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff. Erickson also hosts several podcasts and is a Detroit-based radio host. More about Anne Erickson
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