Don't Blame Matthew Stafford for Lions' Gut-Wrenching Wild-Card Loss

There was no sixth game-winning drive. No road playoff win for the first time since 1957. No first away win over a team with a winning record. 

Just don't pin all the blame on quarterback Matthew Stafford for the Detroit Lions falling to the Dallas Cowboys in gut-wrenching fashion during Sunday's NFC Wild Card at AT&T Stadium.

Quarterbacks often shoulder too much of the blame for losses and receive too much praise for wins. This narrative effect is typically amplified in the postseason, when seasons hang in the balance and the margin for error shrinks to microscopic sizes. 

Stafford will take heat in the coming days. Most of it will be unwarranted. 

Stafford, who fumbled away the football on the final drive to cement a 24-20 loss, failed to snap Detroit's now 10-game road losing streak in the postseason. The Lions remain without a single playoff win since 1991 (eight straight losses), while the club's losing streak against teams with a winning record away from Ford Field extended to 18 games with Stafford under center. 

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These are team realities. So is the fact that Stafford played more than well enough for the Lions to win a road playoff game against a 12-win Cowboys team. 

His final line wasn't particularly impressive. He completed 28 of 42 passes for 323 yards, one touchdown and one interception. His passer rating of 87.7 fell below 90.0 for the 13th time in 17 tries this season.

Regardless of the numbers, Sunday was still one of Stafford's better games of 2014-15. He was efficient, productive and mostly safe with the football. 

He was also a big reason the Lions jumped out to an early two-score lead.

Stafford completed all three of his passes on Detroit's first drive of the game, including a 51-yard touchdown to receiver Golden Tate. On the score, Stafford stepped into a collapsing pocket and delivered a frozen rope—perfectly anticipated and accurate—from his right hand to the waiting mitts of Tate, who made one move on safety J.J. Wilcox and went the distance.

A drive later, the Lions found themselves backed up to the one-foot line. Stafford led the Detroit offense all 99 yards, using a penalty for running into the kicker and a gutsy 9-yard scramble on 3rd-and-8 to extend the drive early. Running back Reggie Bush later scampered into the end zone from 18 yards out to give the Lions a 14-0 lead. 

	vs. DAL	2014 Averages
Cmp. %	66.7	60.3
Yards	323	266.0
Yards/Att	7.7	7.1
Passer Rating	87.7	85.7

Maybe Stafford's biggest mistake of the contest came on the final drive of the first half, when a fastball down the seam was nearly intercepted. But he was also the catalyst for the Lions driving 59 yards in 94 seconds to knock home a field goal and extend the Detroit lead to 10 at halftime. 

The Lions failed to score a touchdown over the final three quarters. And only six points were delivered over the last 45 minutes. Point production generally falls at the feet of the quarterback, but Stafford was unfortunately robbed of a few opportunities. 

His first pass of the second half was deflected at the line of scrimmage and intercepted, a mostly blameless play. The good defensive effort took away a likely completion to Tate and gave the Cowboys a chance to get back into the game, which Dallas did not take advantage of. 

Things eventually spiraled out of control in the fourth quarter. 

After the Cowboys closed the gap to three points at 20-17, Stafford drove the offense into Dallas territory. The defining play of the contest turned the game on its head. 

On 3rd-and-1, Pete Morelli's crew picked up a pass interference penalty on Cowboys linebacker Anthony Hitchens and then missed an unsportsmanlike conduct infraction on receiver Dez Bryant, who entered the field of play without a helmet to argue the original call. 

Had the officials stuck with the initial pass interference and then tacked on another 15 yards for Bryant's actions, the Lions would have been in the red zone and in position to score the game-clinching points. Instead, Detroit punted. Sam Martin's ensuing kick traveled 10 yards. 

The Lions defense couldn't hold on late, allowing a fourth-down conversion and Tony Romo's eight-yard touchdown pass on third down with 2:32 left. The Cowboys led for the first time, 24-20.

On the next possession, Stafford was unable to advance Detroit past the Dallas 42-yard line before taking a strip-sack on 4th-and-3. The NFL's leader in game-winning drives in 2014 (five) couldn't pull off one last miracle. 

The Cowboys ended up scoring the game's final 17 points, stealing away Detroit's trip to Seattle and sending Dallas to Green Bay to play the Packers in the NFC divisional round. 

Romo will receive most of the praise; Stafford will take all the criticism. Romo's good plays will be celebrated; Stafford's bad plays will be scrutinized. It's the nature of the beast in terms of NFL quarterbacks, especially in the postseason. 

The narratives from Detroit's latest postseason failure will claim many things, but it's difficult to say Stafford did not play well enough for the Lions to win a road playoff game for the first time in 57 years. 

Zach Kruse covers the NFC North for Bleacher Report. 

Follow @zachkruse2