Matthew Stafford shares he wasn't rooting for Lions to win Super Bowl after wildcard loss

The ending of the 2023-24 NFL season was a familiar story for Matthew Stafford in a lot of ways: Banged up, defeated, and leaving Ford Field in Detroit after a loss. Though this time, Stafford was playing as the visitor against the team that drafted him No. 1 overall.

And after falling in the wildcard round of the NFC playoffs to Detroit — which had traded him to the Los Angeles Rams ahead of the 2021 season — Stafford didn’t default to cheering for his old team after the Rams fell by a single point. He explained his rooting choices for the remainder of the postseason on a recent interview on Pardon My Take.

“I’m not rooting for anybody at that point,” Stafford said. “I have a couple of ex-teammates that I really wanted to see play well, and they did. But at that point, I wish everybody could lose.”

The Lions ultimately came to trade Stafford after he spent more than a decade in the Motor City, in a move that helped Detroit catapult forward to new success under a new regime and sent Stafford to a team where he won a Super Bowl in Year 1.

All told, the deal worked out favorably for all involved parties at this point, and Stafford wasn’t opting not to root for the Lions due to some animosity he harbors.

His distaste for continuing to watch the playoffs, he said, stemmed from his own disappointment in not getting back closer to the Super Bowl again.

“I’ve got the losing in the first round — I got that one locked up,” Stafford said. “I know what that one feels like. I’ve only gotten one taste of the Super Bowl and I’m like, man, I want to do that.”

Stafford also might’ve had a fair reason not to root for the Lions after the intense booing he received from the crowd in Ford Field on that January night.

But he seems to have joined the general consensus many have about that night: Lions fans don’t hate Stafford or view him as a turncoat, but no amount of fond feelings was going to stymy one of the more raucous playoff atmospheres in recent memory. Decades of pent up desire were simply too much.

And Stafford gave credit where it was due for the chaotic scene in Detroit.

“That was honestly one of the best atmospheres I ever played a football game in,” Stafford said. “Sean [McVay] and I talk about it all the time. It was incredibly loud. We came out for warm-ups and there was not an empty seat. And I mean, it was go time from the second we first stepped out of the tunnel. So it was a lot of fun.”