When Matthew Stafford and the L.A. Rams beat Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl 56, The Hobby of those who collect football cards made the wrong bet ahead of the game. The card buying frenzies around rookie Joe Burrow cards were being made at an exponentially higher rate than purchases of Matthew Stafford cards. The reasons are numerous for why that was happening, but the Rams were favored to win the Super Bowl from the start.

Now, with the hobby having made the wrong bets and taking what appeared to be asymmetrical risks ahead of the game, we need to ask the big question — Is Matthew Stafford now automatically a Hall of Fame QB?

First and foremost, being a Super Bowl winning quarterback does not guarantee a player an enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In fact, even winning two Super Bowls doesn’t automatically assure a Hall of Fame enshrinement.

Collectors Dashboard wanted to dig deeper here and do some brief player comparisons of retired quarterbacks of prior decades and some recently retired quarterbacks. This also includes players who were just recently enshrined or may be enshrined in the coming years.

The stats for 2021 were impressive for Matthew Stafford on the Rams. His 12 wins and 5 losses came with 404 pass completions and a 67.2% completion rate (tying his best annual completion percentage). He threw for 4,886 yards (his third best personally, but the one extra game helped). Stafford tied his career-best for 41 TD passes. Stafford also threw 17 interceptions, his highest number since 2013.

Stafford’s 2021 stats with the Rams were impressive enough to win the #5 ranking at NFL.com, far better than his #13 ranking the prior season with the Lions. The image from NFL.com below will show his total stats including the playoffs and Super Bowl. According to the NFL writeup:

Stafford got a smidge too much credit during a regular season in which his week-to-week consistency didn’t match his numbers. Now Stafford is weirdly not getting enough credit for elevating in the playoffs. That was easily his best four-game stretch of the season. It came against three challenging NFC defenses and without two top wideouts and his tight end by the second half of the Super Bowl.

Stafford’s career stats outside of a losing record with the Lions are also quite impressive even before considering that he now has a Super Bowl ring. Despite 12 wins and 5 losses in 2021, Stafford’s own career record is 86 wins, 96 losses and 1 tie. He has completed 4,302 passes with a 63% completion rate and with 49,995 passing yards. He has thrown 323 TDs, he has thrown 161 interceptions, and he has been sacked 415 times. Stafford’s stats are not bad rushing either — 377 rushes for 1,241 yards, with 14 additional TDs and 122 first-downs.

Matthew Stafford was acquired by the Rams in a trade with the Detroit Lions after the 2021 NFL season. Rams coach Sean McVay had decided he wanted to replace QB Jared Goff despite him still having 2 more years on his contract (which averaged $33.5 million per year). Goff joined the Lions and that team also took a first-round draft pick for 2022 and for 2023. The Lions had another disappointing 2021 season with a dismal 3 wins and 13 losses (and 1 tie), so maybe the issue across the country isn’t being a Lions quarterback as much as it is being on the Lions. The long and short of the matter is that the L.A. Rams gave up two future first-round picks for their future and in return they won the Super Bowl for their expensive gamble.

According to CBS Sports, Stafford’s comeback performance in Super Bowl 56 was strong enough to be included among the strongest Super Bowl performances by a quarterback. CBS ranked Stafford’s performance in the Super Bowl as the 21st best Super Bowl performances out of the 56 Super Bowl games that have been played. Stafford completed 26 passes out of 40, and threw for 283 yards and scored 3 touchdowns. Stafford also had 2 interceptions.

Again, winning the Super Bowl as a QB does not guarantee an enshrinement in the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. The debate has been raging over the last week and SB Nation recently reported that fans are not sold on Matthew Stafford Being a Hall of Famer. SB Nation even had a fan response showing that 55% of fans expect the Bengals to return to the Super Bowl before the Rams do.

So, who is the best quarterback to compare the currently 34-year old Matthew Stafford to?

Let’s immediately forget about any Tom Brady comparisons. At least let’s forget that comparison unless Stafford has several more years with the same result for the Rams. After all, Brady has broken almost every record and he has a record 7 Super Bowl victories. Again. let’s immediately forget about any of these comparisons to Brady.

Peyton Manning was enshrined in 2021 but Manning was considered one of the GOAT players before Tom Brady snatched that title away from him. Peyton Manning won Super Bowl 41 and Super Bowl 50. His career is chalked up with 539 passing TDs and 71,940 passing yards in 18 seasons. As a reminder, Manning missed the 2011 season due to his neck injury. His record was also 186 wins and 79 losses, and he played in 4 Super Bowl appearances over his career.

Kurt Warner is the only other QB to win a Super Bowl for the Rams, albeit of St. Louis at the time when his offense was called ‘The Greatest Show on Turf.’ He was enshrined in Canton, Ohio’s Hall of Fame in 2017. CBS Sports ranked Kurt Warner’s Big Game performance as the 9th Best performance after completing 24 of 45 attempts, throwing for 414 yards and for 2 TDs. Kurt Warner’s full NFL career spanned 12 seasons, where he had 32,344 passing yards, 208 passing TDs and went to 4 Pro Bowls and won the MVP twice. Warner did not really get to be a starting QB until his late-twenties and his 67 win and 49 loss record had a completion rate of 65.5%.

Three key items as of today are already helping Matthew Stafford’s chances of enshrinement in Canton, but they may not assure his enshrinement just quite yet. Let’s take a closer look here before more comparisons to players:

• Stafford’s 49,995 career passing yards already ranks 12th on the all-time NFL list, behind #11 John Elway (51,475), #10 Aaron Rodgers (55,360), and #9 Eli Manning (57,023).
• Stafford’s 323 career TDs is 12th on the all-time touchdown list behind #11 Fran Tarkenton (342) and #10 Eli Manning (366).
• Stafford’s 4,302 completed passes already ranks #11 and has passed John Elway and trails #10 Aaron Rodgers (4,651) and #9 Eli Manning (4,895).

Several issues may not be as stellar as of today that could limit Stafford’s chances of enshrinement. These are career numbers which will be hard to make up massive ground, and as one person who was debating this (against) reminded us — “Almost all QBs now have video game stats!” Our own view is that the game has also been watered down where most quarterbacks are not brutalized with bounties, the rules offer much more protection, and the receivers’ gloves now allow for amazing catches that might have required a pound of “stickum” by the old tradition of the game:

• Stafford is #21 on the list of all-time “Passer Ratings” for QB, per the Pro-Football-Reference site.
• Stafford’s 161 interceptions is tied at 54th place in the NFL all-time, but that ranking is tied with 3 other QBs. If he averages just 1 pick-off per game, 17 more picks will tie him with #43 Norm Van Brocklin, 17 more will put him at 34th place, and 17 more picks would put him within the Top 21 all-time.

Three other very recently retired quarterbacks come to mind for relative comparisons to mind who have Super Bowl victories. Let’s look closer, with a couple key stats here:

• Eli Manning, who only retired after 2019, won Super Bowl 42 and Super Bowl 46. Eli Manning is 9th on the list of all-time passing yards at 57,023.
• Ben Roethlisberger, who is only now just retiring, won Super Bowl 40 and Super Bowl 43. Without age as a factor, some of Stafford’s stats would currently fall in between them. Ben Roethlisberger is fifth on the all-time passing list with 64,088 yards.
• Drew Brees, who led the Saints to victory in Super Bowl 44, has only been retired for a season. We should keep in mind that Tom Brady only broke Drew Brees’ all-time 80,359 passing yards record just in this last season.

As noted, not even 2 Super Bowl victories gives a QB auto-enshrinement…

• Jim Plunkett won two Super Bowls for the Raiders, but he is currently the only quarterback in NFL history to win more than one Super Bowl without being enshrined in Canton, Ohio. The website Last Word on Sports points out that the two Super Bowls combined is just about the only reason he should be considered for the Hall of Fame. They even pointed out that Jim Plunkett would’ve been a very forgettable player otherwise and noted that he was unimpressive statistically with barely a 50% completion percentage.

Here are other Super Bowl winning QBs up to Super Bowl 40 who have not been enshrined in the Hall of Fame in Canton:

• Trent Dilfer won Super Bowl 35
• Jeff Hostetler won Super Bowl 25
• Brad Johnson won Super Bowl 37
• Jim McMahon won Super Bowl 20
• Mark Rypien won Super Bowl 26
• Phil Simms won Super Bowl 21
• Joe Theismann won Super Bowl 17
• Doug Williams won Super Bowl 22

In the end…

Let’s wait and see how the next couple of seasons turn out for Matthew Stafford before The Hobby makes endless bets on whether he will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton. If Stafford has a repeat season and a repeat outcome, or imagine two more seasons, then he will likely have an assured enshrinement. If 2021 was the zenith and his stats and the team are mediocre ahead, then Matthew Stafford will likely be a story of a QB on the bubble with many who believe he should and many who believe he should not be enshrined in Canton.