If the Lions and Matthew Stafford get a contract extension done before the season, it could make Stafford the highest-paid player in the history of the NFL.
And Lions president Rod Wood is OK with that.
“It’s going to be whatever it takes,” Wood told ESPN.com.
If Stafford isn’t the NFL’s highest-paid player when the 2017 season kicks off, Kirk Cousins or Derek Carr might be if they’re signed to extensions. None of these three quarterbacks have won a playoff game, but Stafford has been to three of them. That’s more than Cousins and Carr combined. Cousins lost the only playoff game he started and Carr was unavailable for the Raiders’ playoff game last season because of a broken leg.
The market value of quarterbacks these days isn’t necessarily dictated by championships but by the salary cap. The Lions haven’t won a playoff game since 1991, and to have a reasonable shot at getting past the wild-card round beyond 2017, they’ll have to pay Stafford for the championships they’re hoping to win.
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