It took a dozen seasons, but Matthew Stafford has now scored on them all.
With a 1-yard touchdown pass to T.J. Hockenson in the third quarter during the Detroit Lions‘ 34-16 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars, the 32-year-old quarterback completed the journey of throwing a touchdown pass against every team he’s played against in the NFL.
Stafford had played Jacksonville twice before in his career, threw for over 250 yards in each of those games but didn’t throw a ball into the end zone. And after two rushing touchdowns by the Lions in the first half, it looked like it might happen again.
Then Stafford took three straight throws to the end zone from the 1-yard line, connecting on his third one to be able to say he’d done it against every team except Detroit, the squad he’s played for his entire career.
“That needs to happen for sure,” Stafford said earlier this week. “Golly, Calvin [Johnson] had 100 the one week he couldn’t practice and could only turn right. That was when we played at their place. He had a bad knee and he could only turn right. The other one was at home and I think we had 21 rushes for 14 yards or something like that. [Blake] Bortles kind of turned it over a couple times on us. “But yeah, I need to make that happen. Sorry for going back into the archives there. But yeah, that’d be great. I’d love to have that on the tombstone one day or something.”
It was also Stafford’s 265th touchdown pass of his career.
Stafford is the 27th quarterback to achieve the feat, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.