Matthew Stafford's football cards rise with MVP play

Matthew Stafford took another step toward the crowning individual achievement of his career on Sunday, which could have a significant impact on his football card values.

Selected as the midseason NFL MVP by league executives who participated in a Sports Illustrated poll, Stafford fired four touchdown passes in the Los Angeles Rams’ 42-26 victory over the San Francisco 49ers at Levi’s Stadium. The win marked the fourth consecutive game in which the 37-year-old Stafford, who leads the league with 25 touchdown passes, has thrown at least four touchdowns without an interception.

A Super Bowl champion (LVI with the Rams at the end of the 2021 season) and two-time Pro Bowl quarterback, an MVP award would take Stafford’s legacy to another level.

Matthew Stafford's 2009 Topps Chrome (#TC210) PSA 10 base rookie card is up more than 40 percent year over year. Stafford's rookie cards came out at a time in the hobby when print runs were lower than today, resulting in the existence of fewer high-grade copies of his key cards. | Card Ladder

An MVP nod would put Stafford in a group with Terry Bradshaw, John Elway and Peyton Manning as former No. 1 overall picks in the NFL draft (Stafford was picked first overall by the Detroit Lions out of the University of Georgia in 2009) to win an MVP and at least one Super Bowl. According to DraftKings Sportsbook, Stafford’s Week 10 performance moved up behind Drake Maye of the New England Patriots as the favorite to win the MVP for the 2025 season.

A lot of football remains to be played to determine a winner in the MVP race. Still, the football card hobby has reacted accordingly to arguably the best season of Stafford's career.

According to his Card Ladder player index, Stafford’s card market is up more than 75 percent over the past year. Stafford’s cards accounted for $1,665.99 in verified online sales on Sunday, according to Card Ladder, marking Stafford’s third-highest single-day year-to-date sales volume.

What should make Stafford’s market intriguing for collectors is that the cards produced early in his career, especially his 2009 rookie cards, came out when the sports card hobby wasn’t as flush with cash as it is today. As a result, print runs and PSA population counts of Stafford’s key cards, like his 2009 Topps (#430) flagship rookie card, which has a PSA 10 population of 552 (according to Card Ladder), pale in comparison to those of recent NFL MVP winners.

A PSA 10 Matthew Stafford 2009 Playoff Contenders (#101) Rookie Ticket Autograph sold for $1,050 on eBay on Oct. 19, 2025. Stafford has one of the lowest entry points of active quarterbacks likely headed for the Hall of Fame, regarding the cost of his high-end rookie cards. | Card Ladder

Stafford’s PSA 10 Topps rookie card has a fraction of the population of Aaron Rodgers’ base rookie card from the 2005 Topps (#431) flagship release (PSA 10 population of 3,998). There are 1,719 PSA 10 copies of Patrick Mahomes’ 2017 Donruss (#327) base rookie cards in existence, according to Card Ladder, which is more than three times the number of PSA 10 Stafford Topps flagship rookie cards on PSA’s population report.

The PSA 10 population counts of the 2018 Donruss base rookie cards of Josh Allen (#304) and Lamar Jackson (#317) are astronomical compared to Stafford’s Topps paper rookie card, with 10,351 and 7,384, respectively.

Dec 3, 2023; Inglewood, California, USA; Los Angeles Rams quarterback Mathew Stafford (9) throws the ball | Yannick Peterhans-Imagn Images

A PSA 10 Stafford Topps flagship rookie card sold on eBay on Sunday for $159.99, marking the card’s highest Card Ladder-verified sale in the last year. Additionally, A PSA 10 copy of Stafford’s 2009 Topps Chrome (#TC210), which has a population of 204 and sold for less than $125 last December, sold for $265 on eBay last Thursday.

The rise in Stafford’s card values mirrors the probable future Hall of Fame quarterback’s remarkable 17th NFL season, one in which the Rams have emerged as a Super Bowl contender. If Los Angeles (7-2) breaks a tie with the Seattle Seahawks (7-2) for first place in the NFC West in their Week 11 battle at SoFi Stadium (4:05 p.m. ET, Fox), Stafford’s cards could get another significant boost down the backstretch of the regular season.