Brian Manzullo

Detroit Free Press

Is Matthew Stafford having a great season? Absolutely.

Is Matthew Stafford an MVP candidate 12 weeks into the NFL season? No question.

Is Matthew Stafford better than Aaron Rodgers? ... Whoa, whoa, whoa, let's pump the brakes for a second.

For years, this was never even a debate. Rodgers is a 2-time MVP, a Super Bowl champion, a 5-time Pro Bowler and 2-time first-team All-Pro with the Green Bay Packers, who have dominated the NFC North in recent seasons.

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As for Stafford? One Pro Bowl appearance in 2014. No playoff wins. No division championships. Never sniffed an MVP conversation until this year.

But now that Stafford is having an electric year for the 7-4 Lions, who look poised to capture their first-ever NFC North championship with five weeks to go, Fox Sports radio personality Colin Cowherd wants to make you think. Maybe Stafford has been the better quarterback all along?

Before you rush to the comments to call baloney on all this, at least hear his reasoning first.

"Who was the better quarterback in high school? Matt Stafford was No. 1 in America," Cowherd said on his radio show, "The Herd," on Wednesday. "Aaron Rodgers was not Top 30. Who was better out of college? Matt Stafford didn't have to go to a junior college. He started at Georgia, the best conference in the country (SEC) as a true freshman. The better quarterback is a natural talent since he's been 12, is Matt Stafford."

All of this is true so far. Stafford was a 5-star, Top-10 high school talent, ranked the No. 1 pro-style quarterback in the nation coming out of Highland Park in Dallas in 2006. Rodgers was barely recruited out of Pleasant Valley High School in California in 2002. He spent a year at Butte College before attending Cal on a scholarship.

Cowherd continues.

"Matt Stafford inherits an 0-16 team with the worst GM in league history, Matt Millen, and a defensive head coach (Jim Schwartz) who's eventually fired," Cowherd said Wednesday. "Aaron Rodgers sits for three years, inherits a team that goes to the NFC championship, utter stability, loaded with Pro Bowlers. All sorts of momentum, and they just got to the NFC championship.

"But the longer this game plays out, and Matt Stafford now just gets competent coaching. Nobody says Jim Caldwell is (Bill) Belichick. Nobody thinks Jim Bob Cooter is Andy Reid. But in the last year, in the last 17 games, in which Matt Stafford has been given competent units. 36 TDs, 6 interceptions, 69% completion percentage, 106 passer rating. Check, check, check, check. All better than Aaron."

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Now, let's be fair. Seventeen games is a relatively small sample size when measuring a player's NFL career. And it remains to be seen what the Lions make of this season; while Stafford is having a remarkable year and has a real knack for fourth-quarter comebacks (seven this year, 27 in his career), it won't mean much if the Lions fizzle out, fail to win a playoff game or even reach the playoffs entirely.

For Stafford to ascend to the pantheon of great quarterbacks that have played in the NFL, he'll need to prove it in the most critical games and moments, like Rodgers did when the Packers won Super Bowl XLV. Stafford may have a prime opportunity to do so down the stretch of this season, with the Lions competing for a division championship and a home date with Rodgers' Packers in Week 17 to end the regular season.

For now, though, while Cowherd isn't point-blank saying Stafford's the better quarterback, he's saying it's possible.

"Stafford was a considerably better high school quarterback, a considerably better college talent," Cowherd said. "But like we do in society all the time, we don't consider what you've overcome or what you've inherited. When Stafford's simply been given marginally competent coaching, he's an MVP candidate."

Contact Brian Manzullo: bmanzullo@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @BrianManzullo.

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