When Matthew Stafford finishes throwing for over 5,000 yards and 41 touchdowns, he looks at lesser NFC North quarterbacks and says, "If you're having girl problems, I feel bad for you son..." 

Stafford definitely does not have girl problems. He's in love and he 'don't care who knows it.'

But that doesn't mean he's ready to go and put a ring on it; he's hoping to bring home one of these first. By these, if you didn't click the link, I mean a Super Bowl ring:  

Stafford said he was in love but not getting married “any time soon” -- [Dan] Patrick wanted to know what was coming first, a Super Bowl ring or an engagement ring for girlfriend Kelly Hall.

“Oh, my gosh, this guy,” Stafford said. “Hopefully, Super Bowl ring. Hopefully, Super Bowl ring.”

That might be "bulletin board material for the home life" for some insecure girls, but I'm sure Stafford's pretty awesome girlfriend isn't sweating it: 

 

I'm a happily married 25-year-old man and check me out, I'm kick ass. But yeah, Stafford turns 24 this month and will be 25 by the time he brings it home. Any engagement can wait at least a year.

Click here for Stafford's full interview with Dan Patrick.

Guess who's back? Back again? Bobby's back, tell my mom. Guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back... Meh.

Yeah, I'm back like Shawntel, and what better time to return than to announce the NFL's comeback player of the year -- Matthew Stafford:

Stafford was rewarded for his bounce-back year today by being named Pro Football Weekly/Professional Football Writers Association comeback player of the year.

He's also a favorite for the Associated Press award, the one officially recognized by the NFL and handed out on Super Bowl eve.

Stafford, 23 and playing his first full season in the NFL, bounced back from his injuries in a fairly big way by only setting Lions single-season passing records for yards (5,038), touchdowns (41), and passer rating (97.2). Oh yeah, the Lions made the playoffs for the first time in 12 years.

Yeahhhh, I think it's time someone comes out with the under-embedded video's sequel:

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I figured that the Lions were heading into a buzzsaw of a game in New Orleans last night, but hopefully their 45-28 loss ends up being a speed bump on the way to future playoff success. Matthew Stafford seems to think that this will be the case.

It's easy for Stafford to be optimistic. He threw for 380 yards and 3 touchdowns (and ran for another) in his playoff debut. He has the best wide receiver on the planet who breaks playoff debut records like it's his job (because it is). He has two promising, young running backs that will return next year to help solidify the rushing attack. Oh, and he's still only 23 years old.

The real question that the Lions must answer in the offseason is on the other side of the football. The front four, when not being blatantly held, is one of the most dominant in football. Given their relative youth, this unit will only continue to get better. The linebackers and secondary, however, still need work. Drew Brees has been torching defenses all year, but giving up nearly 1,000 passing yards in the past two weeks is simply unacceptable. Martin Mayhew & Co. have done a phenomenal job of getting this team out of the NFL's cellar, but now the bar has been raised. Hopefully Stafford, Johnson, and the rest of this team is up to the challenge.

Unbeknownst to the Lions and their fans, Aaron Rodgers played all four quarters of today's 45-41 Green Bay victory. Dressed as backup QB Matt Flynn, Rodgers was able to pull off the stunt thanks to a lot of makeup, some nifty camera work from FOX, and that stupid ass State Farm commercial. Naturally, Jim Schwartz was not pleased.

With the loss and the Falcons' win over Tampa Bay this afternoon, the Lions will go back to the Bayou next week to play the New Orleans Saints in the first round of the playoffs. Hopefully someone can surgically remove Drew Brees' right arm in the next six days, otherwise the Lions look to be in some serious trouble.

It's official: 2011 will be a winning season for the Detroit Lions. The Lions picked up their 9th win with a Tebow-esque comeback against the Oakland Raiders, erasing a 13 point deficit in the 4th quarter. With the win, the Lions are on the verge of their first playoff birth since I was in elementary school 1999.

Bullets of incoherent thoughts because I'm still going nuts 3 hours later:

• Jim Schwartz fist pump? Jim Schwartz fist pump.

• Calvin Johnson is a beast, plain and simple. The Raiders spent most of the game double covering Megatron and he still managed to catch 9 passes for over 200 yards. There were multiple occasions where he simply outran defenders (as well as Stafford's arm at one point).

• Speaking of Stafford, wow. After today, Stafford is the second-youngest player to ever throw for 4,000 yards and 30 TDs in a season. The youngest? Some bum named Dan Marino. More important than the stats, however, was how well Stafford played down the stretch. Dude has balls, plain and simple.

• I said it on Twitter earlier, but Cliff Avril's sack of Carson Palmer on Oakland's last drive will likely be the most underrated play of the Lions' season. Forcing the Raiders to use their last timeout in that situation helped keep them in the stratosphere for Janikowski's field goal attempt. If they get any closer, I don't know if the kick is low enough to get blocked.

• Odds are that the story of the week will be Ndamukong Suh blocking Sebastian Janikowski's 65-yard field goal attempt on the last play of the game. Like many people (myself included) thought, last week's radio show incident is going to blow over because of Suh's performance on the field.

• As far as the playoffs are concerned, the Lions need to win one of their last two games to lock up a wild card berth. With the way that San Diego is playing tonight, this seems much more difficult than it did a couple hours ago. However, San Diego is 2-4 on the road this season.

• The Lions can also make the playoffs if the Bears, Seahawks, and Cardinals all lose one more game. The Bears are at Green Bay next weekend and the Seahawks and Cardinals play each other in week 17. Odds are the Lions will be able to back in if, Tebow forbid, they lose their last two games.

• Currently, the Lions are locked into a matchup with San Francisco in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. This is much preferred to playing the Saints again in the Superdome (which might be inevitable, but let's put it off as long as possible). Root for Pittsburgh tomorrow night.

So remember when I was all excited about the Eazy E jokes that I would get to make after the Lions signed Eric Wright? Consider those days over after Wright got flat-out embarrassed by the Saints' Robert Meachem in the first half of tonight's game.

Of course, as I'm posting this, Wright nearly pulled off a pick 6 of ultimate redemption. Kinda like how he "nearly" tackled Meachem there.

[The Score]

Yeah, it took a few days to get over that one. The Lions got absolutely stomped by the Chicago Bears 37-13 on Sunday, but at least they didn't go down without a fight (literally).

I'm not very surprised at this, as the Lions were visibly frustrated throughout the game. What was surprising, however, was the Lions' poor effort coming off of their bye week. I thought that the Lions would have been much better prepared to play this game, especially the special teams. At least this was awesome though.

Otherwise, this entire game sucked, and now Matthew Stafford is hurt. Hopefully the Lions can rebound next week at home against Carolina.

[SB Nation Detroit]

Whether this failed dunk attempt from Calvin Johnson was intentional or not, I'm willing to bet that losing to the Falcons wasn't.

While I'm still happy that the Lions have a 5-2 record, it doesn't feel very good to be limping towards the bye week. Hopefully the Lions will be able to rebound next week against Tim Tebow and the Broncos.

[SB Nation]

So remember that whole thing yesterday about me being happy that the Lions had traded for Ronnie Brown? Well, Jerome Harrison did the most Lions-esque thing he could and failed his physical... or something. Now the trade is off and I'm sitting somewhere between indifferent and this guy.

Ok, so maybe it's not all Harrison's fault, but I need a scapegoat right now. The silver lining of having an extra draft pick to fill out the practice squad isn't doing it for me.

[Pride of Detroit]

The Detroit Lions, sitting in 2nd place in the NFC North with a 5-1 record, have been looking to get a bit more creative on offense. No, I'm not talking about mixing up the playcalling (though that was seriously needed in last week's loss against San Francisco). I'm talking about keeping the defense on their toes with crazy boneheaded plays like this.

So, in looking for creativity, it makes sense that the Lions would trade boring-ass RB Jerome Harrison and a 7th round pick to the Philadelphia Eagles for Ronnie Brown. More fumbles like this should lead to the play that we've come to expect from our Lions over the years.

Ok, on a serious note, I love this deal. Harrison was nothing more than a stop-gap for IR'd rookie Mikael Leshoure. Other than the craziness we see above (likely a result of Andy Reid's coaching ability, no doubt), Brown has otherwise lit the NFL on fire when he's been able to stay healthy. Trading a career journeyman for a potential All-Pro running back to pair with Jahvid Best is the type of move that has allowed Martin Mayhew to turn this team around so quickly.

And as you might expect, Jim Schwartz agrees.

[Pride of Detroit]