Matthew Stafford, King of the Pick-Six

All hail Matthew Stafford, your all-time Pick Six king.

Late in the fourth quarter on Sunday night, Talanoa Hufanga jumped a flat route by Kyren Williams, juked Stafford out of his shoes, and raced all the way back to the end zone. “That’s not a mistake you see Stafford make very often,” Cris Collinsworth claimed on the broadcast.

It is, of course, a mistake we see Stafford make very often. That was Stafford’s 33rd career pick six, breaking his tie with Brett Favre and giving him sole possession of the all-time record. A real achievement!

There is nothing inherently bad about this record. Like many cumulative quarterbacks for “# of times you did a bad thing”, the top of this list is filled with Hall of Famers and Pro Bowls. You have to have a ton of starts in order to compile enough pick-sixes to appear near the top of this list. Six of the top 20 names here are in the Hall of Fame, and 19 of the 30 full-time quarterbacks in the Hall have double-digit pick sixes; only Sid Luckman, Steve Young and Roger Staubach got away with less than five. So, like being the all-time leader in interceptions (Brett Favre) or sacks (Aaron Rodges) is something of a tarnished badge of honor. The Lions and Rams have trusted Stafford enough to put him in position where he could throw 33 pick sixes. Like Favre before him, or Joe Namath before that, it may not be something to be celebrated, but it’s not an embarrassment on your resume.

A pick-six is a rare occurrence, too, especially in the modern era. The only person to throw five or more in a season in the past decade was Jameis Winston in 2019, who had an all-time record seven in his 30-touchdown, 30-interception season. That was the last time Winston ever got to start at least half a season (…so far, good luck, Giants fans), because if you throw enough interceptions to chalk up a ton of pick-sixes, you’re probably getting replaced. It’s a hard record to hunt down, because any serious challenger gets kicked out before they can make a real assault on the title.

Plus, pick-sixes are more or less random, surely – or, at least, advanced stats tend to treat them that way. To even get a return, you need the defender not to get caught up with the player they’re trying to cover. Then you have to hope there’s a lane, and maybe some potential blockers, between the intercepting player and the end zone – the more you have to weave through traffic to get to the goal line, the less likely you’re going to return it all the way. Any stat which depends, in part, on how well your left tackle can stop a guy is going to be noisy as all hell.

And so the broadcast, and the media as a whole, has regarded Stafford’s record as something of an interesting footnote. There were a few jokes about Collinsworth regarding the all-time leader in the stat as a rare occurrence, a mention or two in the bottom of articles asking what is wrong with the 1-2 Rams. It’s a neat bit of trivia, but we all move on with the rest of our lives.

No. Stop for a moment.

This isn’t a case of just a veteran ending up on top of a leaderboard out of sheer inertia. I’m not suggesting they should have stopped the game and given Stafford the game ball or anything, but…

Matthew Stafford is the greatest Pick-Six thrower in NFL history. No mere compiler, Stafford has found the perfect mix of talent, longevity, health, pass selection, athleticism, and game management style to push this record to new heights. You and I may never live to see someone else top this leaderboard; Stafford’s name may be on top of this list when the NFL finally closes its doors and shuts down.

A bold statement, considering Stafford is the leader by a whopping one pick-six, but it’s one I’m willing to stand by. The more I dug into the record, the more remarkable Stafford appears.