Stafford Requests Trade, Detroit to Accommodate Him

[AlwaysSunnyinIndy]

Al Breer had a Stafford / Indy write-up in his latest SI column. I excerpted the comments below; you can click on the link if you want to read the entire article.

https://www.si.com/nfl/2021/01/25/mm...wl-daily-cover

Indianapolis seems like the natural landing spot for Stafford. The question, then, becomes whether GM Chris Ballard and coach Frank Reich would see Stafford as a Band-Aid or more than that. The team went with a Band-Aid last year, in Rivers, after taking a shot with Jacoby Brissett in 2019 (and that was after Jimmy Garoppolo’s name briefly came up in the DeForest Buckner trade talks with San Francisco). Might they want to fix the position once and for all? I think that would be preferable. You could point to the Buckner trade as an example of Ballard being aggressive in the way he’d have to be on Stafford—but Buckner’s 26 and a definite long-term cornerstone. My guess would be that is what Ballard’s looking for. Maybe Stafford is that. Or maybe a big move up in the draft gets him there. Remember, Ballard was part of the vetting of Mahomes in Kansas City and saw the benefit of going all in on a young player at the position and dropping him into a readymade situation. Only he knows if there’s a quarterback in this year’s draft class that he sees like the Chiefs’ folks saw Mahomes in 2017. But if there is one, I’d bet he wouldn’t be scared to move way up the draft board, get a cost-controlled young passer and use the leftover cap space to start paying the guys they’ve been building around (like Quenton Nelson and Darius Leonard).