"It was important [to finish the deal before the regular season]," Stafford said. "It wasn't something all along I knew was gonna be the case, but as it got into training camp a little bit, I realized that I think we have an extremely talented team and for us to be worried about, or anybody, even myself, about my contract situation to what it was going to be, was going to be a disservice to the organization, to our team, to the players in the locker room. So I wanted to get this thing done and then kind of realized that during training camp."