Matthew Stafford: There were a few teams I didn’t want to get traded to

[Pat Patriot]

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Earlier this week, soon-to-be former Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford sat down for an interview with Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press that touched on topics related to his pending trade to the Rams.

On Sunday, the newspaper shared more of that conversation with their subscribers. One of the new questions had to do with a report that Stafford was open to being traded to any team other than the Patriots.

Stafford did not share whether he was willing to go to New England, but did say that there was more than one place he didn’t want to go for the next chapter of his NFL career.

“What’s accurate is — and this is an incredible thing by [the Lions] — I asked to go to a team that was ready to win a championship,” Stafford said. “And, you know, there were a few teams on that list. There were a few teams that were not on that list. And they were respectful of that and understood completely. I had thoughts and reasons for each one of them.”

For the first two decades of the millennium, the Patriots were the place to go if you were looking for a team ready to win a championship. Their first year without Tom Brady dropped them from those ranks and Stafford won’t be the quarterback to lead a resurgence in New England.