"We've got a quarterback.

No matter what happens Saturday night in New Orleans, no matter what unfolds in this first Lions playoff season since the last millennium, Detroit fans can say that sentence and take comfort in it.

We've got a quarterback.

It is no small deal.

Until Matthew Stafford came of age this season, the guy behind center for Detroit was a phantom. He changed faces, numbers, body types and 40-yard dash speed, but he remained invisible, a shadow, a wispy symbol of a team that was, in the end, going nowhere."