Blockbuster Trade Means Titans Will Face Stafford in Consecutive Seasons

Tennessee has gone against the first overall pick in 2009 just three times, including 2020, but won't have to wait long to see him again.

Because he has spent his entire career with the Detroit Lions, quarterback Matthew Stafford has faced the Tennessee Titans – and the rest of the AFC South – just once every four years.

Saturday’s news that the first overall pick in the 2009 NFL draft has been traded in a blockbuster deal that sends another No. 1 overall selection, Jared Goff (2016), to the Lions changes that.

The 2021 NFL schedule will match the AFC South against the NFC West in inter-conference play, which means the Titans, Indianapolis Colts, Houston Texans and Jacksonville Jaguars will see Stafford for a second consecutive year. And the fact that he will be paired with coach Sean McVay, widely regarded as one of the NFL’s best offensive minds, means they might see a completely different Stafford than the one they encountered this season when the AFC South and NFC North were matched up – or any other time.

In 12 career games against the AFC South, Stafford is just 4-8, including 0-3 against the Titans and Texans. That is despite the fact that he did not face that division unit his fourth season (2012) when most of his growing pains -- presumably -- were behind him. The only team in the division against which he has a winning record is Jacksonville (3-0).

The most recent of those contests was Detroit’s Week 15 visit to Nissan Stadium, when he completed 22 of 32 passes for 252 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions against the Titans despite a rib injury that created uncertainty throughout the week about whether he would even be able to play. His 102.6 passer rating in that one was his best against Tennessee, but the margin of defeat (the Titans won 46-25) was his worst – by far – in those meetings.

“I was just trying to take what they gave me, and they were playing a bunch of Tampa 2 (that day) from a bunch of different alignments, tricky Tampa stuff, and some of the best disguises all year,” Stafford said following that game. “But I felt like I saw them all and felt good about them, and they got a little bit more aggressive as the game went on, and played a little bit more downhill, and gave us some chances to throw it over the top.”

The Titans are one of 10 NFL teams that has held Stafford to fewer than seven yards per attempt (6.93 in their case) but he completed 67.5 percent of those attempts, which is his fifth best against a single opponent.

A game-by-game look at Matthew Stafford against the Tennessee Titans:

Year	Result	Att.	Comp.	Yards	TD	INT
2012	L 44-41 (OT)	33	42	278	1	0
2016	L 16-15	22	40	260	1	1
2020	L 46-25	22	32	252	1	0

It is not necessarily that Stafford has played poorly against the AFC South, though. His career passer rating in those games is 93.0, his third best against any division, and he has thrown 16 touchdown passes with just five interceptions, which is 3.2 touchdowns to every interception, his best ratio against any division. Plus, he has averaged 295.1 passing yards in those contests. For his career, he has averaged 273.4 yards passing.

As SI.com’s Michael Rosenberg noted in an analysis of the deal, Stafford’s career has been the juxtaposition of his ability to perform well on teams that more often than not did not measure up to the opposition.

Rosenberg wrote:

The notion that some quarterbacks put up huge numbers for bad teams does not really make sense. It’s a lot harder to put up huger numbers when your team is bad—and a lot easier when you have a great head coach and are surrounded by talent, like Jared Goff was during his Super Bowl run with the Rams.

Sometimes the conversation about his powerful arm distracts people. He has stretches when he throws 15 straight perfect passes—pinpoint lasers into tight windows. In the past five years, Stafford has completed a slightly higher percentage of his passes than Tom Brady. He has done it with subpar coaching and poor pass protection.

Given the hefty price they paid to get him, the Rams clearly believe that they can get the best out of Stafford – or at least provide him with the chance to be better than he has been. If they’re right, the Titans will be among the first to see the difference.