CJ Stroud shares strong take comparing Matthew Stafford and Aaron Rodgers
Aaron Rodgers became a starting quarterback for the Green Bay Packers in 2008. One year later, Matthew Stafford was drafted with the first overall pick by the Detroit Lions. Rodgers ended up winning a Super Bowl with the Packers in 2010, and Stafford failed to win a playoff game for the Lions — but then, […]
Aaron Rodgers became a starting quarterback for the Green Bay Packers in 2008. One year later, Matthew Stafford was drafted with the first overall pick by the Detroit Lions. Rodgers ended up winning a Super Bowl with the Packers in 2010, and Stafford failed to win a playoff game for the Lions — but then, Stafford got traded to the Los Angeles Rams and won a Super Bowl right away.
For Houston Texans' quarterback CJ Stroud, who was nine when the Packers won the title, Stafford would have more titles than Rodgers given the same situation.
"If you give Matthew Stafford a chance like Aaron Rodgers had, I guarantee you he might have had more rings," Stroud said on the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast. "I think he would have like three or four."
It feels like Stroud is pretty much in the "count the rings" spectrum when analyzing what Aaron Rodgers did in the NFL. And he seems to have a closer relationship with Tom Brady. Asked if he would choose a path like Rodgers (with several individual accomplishments, but one title) or Eli Manning (two rings), he prefers the championships.
"You want the rings, dog, Eli got two," Stroud said. "I've talked to Tom Brady about this, because he's a good mentor to me. What he told me is his teammates, and how he treats his teammates. And that's where I think it falls off. We don't know how Aaron Rodgers treats his teammates, but you can guarantee that Tom Brady treats his teammates right because how he got those rings."
It's impossible to know for sure if Stafford would have won more rings than Rodgers did in Green Bay, because individually Rodgers was always the better player — he won the MVP four times and was named an All-Decade quarterback, while Stafford only won a title under a nearly perfect situation with the Rams.
But we can't blame Stroud for prioritizing championships over everything else — let's see how it impacts his contract negotiations two years from now.
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