2009 Player Profiles: Matthew Stafford

I'll be doing plenty of player profiles as the draft season rolls on. Here's the first one.

* Denotes underclassmen

1. Matthew Stafford*, Georgia
Career Stats: 564/987 (57.1%), 7731 yards, 51 touchdowns, 33 interceptions

Stafford has started 34 games in his career, and appeared in 39 total, as he led Georgia to a 27-7 record as a starter. He's gifted with great size (6-foot-3-inches, 237 pounds) and a powerful arm. His mechanics and footwork have steadily improved each year, noticably improving his accuracy and release. Stafford's primary struggles have been inconsistency and far too much faith in his arm. While he has the arm to squeeze the ball into tight windows, he lacks the overall accuracy to do it, which has led to an interception every 29-30 attempts Stafford makes. If Stafford is asked to start right away, he could throw 20 interceptions at the Pro level as a rookie--especially if it's with Detroit.

Like many top prospects, Stafford is high-risk, high-reward. A flop could potentially set back a struggling franchise further, while success would give a franchise a long-term solution at quarterback. If one of the top teams in contention for Stafford (Detroit, St. Louis, or Kansas City) expects him to start right away, they'll need to take a lesson from the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons, before drafting Matt Ryan, added a power runner to compliment speedster Jerious Norwood, added vastly underrated free safety Erik Coleman, and drafted blind-side protector Sam Baker. Baker missed quite a bit of the season with injuries, but the Falcons were still able to run the ball and take pressure off of Matt Ryan.

The success for any rookie quarterback is to be put in an offense that emphasizes minimizing mistakes and simply taking care of the ball while the running game does the work. Detroit just hired pass-happy coordinator Scott Linehan, so I'm not sure that's the best recipe for Stafford's success, but all the same, he will likely wind up there anyway.