If Matthew Stafford cares at all about career records, then he has a great chance to retire as the NFL’s all-time leader in passing yardage. Prepare yourselves for this outcome, because it is very much in play.

Stafford is only 30 years old and has already thrown for 34,749 yards. He’ll probably finish the upcoming season ranked No. 21 on the passing leaderboard, assuming good health. Next year, he’s going to leapfrog Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana and Dan Fouts on the all-time list.

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Drew Brees will actually break the career passing mark this October in all likelihood, and he’s going to reach 80K yards if he plays beyond 40. Brees certainly has a shot to put the record in a distant place. Still, if Stafford plays another 10 seasons (which is no small ask) at a level that approaches what he’s done over the past three (4345 yards per year), then he’ll find himself on the doorstep of 80,000 yards at age 39.

By that point, of course, Stafford will have made eleventy trillion dollars in lifetime earnings, so he might reasonably decide to leave the game and buy a small island. Or a large island. Or go live in space. Hard to say what he’ll do, but he’ll have options.

The point is, Stafford has been astonishingly productive over the years, and he’s still a young quarterback. We used to think of him as injury prone, but he hasn’t missed a game over the past seven seasons. He’s finished as a top-10 fantasy QB in each of the last three years. Stafford is an accurate and inventive passer with one of the strongest arms in league history.

Curiously, Detroit has not been particularly aggressive with the vertical passing game during Jim Bob Cooter’s tenure as OC. Stafford has ranked in the bottom-half of the league’s starting quarterbacks in deep attempts per game over the past two seasons (4.0), according to Player Profiler. He’s made significant leaps in completion percentage, yards per attempt and passer-rating, however, while averaging better than 270 yards per game. Stafford has definitely not been a problem — not for the fantasy community, not for Lions fans. He doesn’t exactly have a distinguished postseason record (0-3), but that’s not entirely on him. He’s led the league in game-winning drives in three of the past four years, for whatever that’s worth.

No matter what you think of Stafford as a real-life QB, hopefully you can acknowledge that he’s an underrated fantasy commodity. He’s the eleventh quarterback off the board in recent drafts according to FF Calculator (ADP 99.7), but he’s beaten that rank in five of the last seven seasons. If you can land him at his ADP, it’s an easy profit.

Kenny Golladay, fantasy sleeper

You don’t need an expert to tell you that Marvin Jones and Golden Tate are rock-solid WR2s in our game. Jones has spent two seasons in Detroit, catching 116 balls for 2031 yards and 13 scores. He’s not a target monster like Tate, so if week-to-week consistency is your thing, look elsewhere. But if you like big plays and the occasional huge week from your supporting receivers, Jones is your guy. Tate has caught at least 90 balls on 120-plus targets in each of the four seasons he’s been attached to Stafford. When he retires, he’ll go straight to the PPR Hall of Fame. Tate is a short-range receiver who rarely gets a look near the goal line, so his fantasy value takes a dip in standard formats. But you knew that already.

View photos Kenny Golladay, breakout candidate. (AP Photo/Jose Juarez) More

Let’s get to the subject of our subhead…

Golladay opened his rookie season with a two-touchdown performance in a comeback win against Arizona — and the second TD was of the highest quality. The performance left little doubt that Golladay can be an impact player for the Lions. Unfortunately, a September hamstring injury interrupted his season. Golladay still managed to finish with 28 catches for 477 yards in 11 games, including five receptions that went for 40-plus. He has terrific size (6-foot-4) and big-play ability, and he was a buzzy player throughout the offseason. Tate is clearly a fan: