The Matt Stafford-Bobby Layne-Detroit Lions connection gets more eerie by the day.

Stafford, you know, attended the same Dallas high school as Layne (Highland Park) and is a candidate to replace Layne (52 years later) as quarterback of the Lions. Legend has it, of course, Layne cursed the Lions on his way out of town after leading the team to the 1957 championship.

Turns out, Stafford, like Layne, led Highland Park to a Texas state championship – a title that was the school's first since 1957.

“It's weird, it's crazy,” Stafford said of the similarities Thursday at the NFL combine. “It's kind of ironic how it all came together. Obviously, there's a lot of time between now and draft day and who knows what can happen. That would be something that would definitely be interesting, something that you guys can probably write a lot about.”

There's two months until the draft and no telling what the Lions will do with the No. 1 pick, but Stafford has to be the front-runner for now. He won't throw or lift during workouts Sunday, but will run the 40 and take part in other drills.

Already, he met with most of the Lions' decision makers for dinner Thursday – he had salmon and asparagus, and joked that he didn't have a steak (the meeting was at Shula's Steak House) because “I didn't know what I was going to weigh so I just wanted to make sure I was good.” (For reference, he measured just over 6-foot-2 and 225 pounds.)

“Just trying to get to know each other,” Stafford said of the meeting that included Lions general manager Martin Mayhew, coach Jim Schwartz and offensive coordinator Scott Linehan. “That was the main gist of the meeting and the dinner. I had a great time. I really felt like I clicked well with some of the people there. But it was a lot of fun.”

As for going to the Lions, where he might start the season as a backup to Daunte Culpepper, Stafford said he would “love the challenge” of resuscitating an 0-16 team.

“My philosophy on that is I'm going to do everything I can to be as ready as possible to play wherever I go,” he said. “If they don't feel that I'm ready to go and I have to sit behind a veteran for a while and maybe learn some of the things that I need to learn then that's fine. But I'm going to make it as hard as I can on coaches to try to keep me off the field. I've always wanted to get in there and play as soon as I'm ready and that's my plan going into wherever I play.”

The NFL draft is still three months away, plenty of time to parse every word spoken or written about the Lions and the No. 1 pick.

One tidbit I found interesting came from Peter King's always thorough Monday Morning Quarterback column on SportsIllustrated.com. King asked former Browns general manager Phil Savage to provide some insight on all things Senior Bowl. From Savage:

“First pick in the draft? If it's Detroit, and Jim Schwartz is talking about Bobby Layne, and the offensive coordinator is Scott Linehan, who wants a big, strong-thrower, I'd say the big strong QB with a strong arm would be the pick. Matthew Stafford is big and throws the ball so well. It's a pretty easy guess.”

Don't go betting the house on Stafford in Honolulu blue just yet, but this is the same Savage who the Lions wanted for their front-office opening (and the same Savage who “has resisted overtures” according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer). Savage knows Schwartz well from their days in Cleveland, and he's dead on about Linehan's taste in quarterback.

Now the contrarian viewpoint, Lions general manager Martin Mayhew has final say on all things draft. He was asked a week and a half ago about Schwartz's “Layne” comment and the commonly-held NFL belief (shared by the new Lions coach) that quarterback is the trump-card position in football.

“I think it's an extremely important position but I don't think you have to have Bobby Layne or Peyton Manning,” Mayhew said. “You have to have a guy who's playing very efficiently and a guy who's being very productive to have a chance to win. You have guys like Brad Johnson who go to a Super Bowl and win it. You have guys like Rex Grossman a couple years ago in a Super Bowl. You have guys who are not known as perennial Pro Bowlers or Hall of Famers, but they perform at a high level. It's how that guy's performing.”

When pointed out he's championing a temporary solution not guaranteed success for the long term – Johnson missed the playoffs a year after leading Tampa Bay to its championship, and Grossman has made eight starts in the two years since his Super Bowl XLI appearance – Mayhew said, “That's the counter argument to it. To me, you have to have a guy that's performing at a high level.”

I have to credit John McGrath of the Tacoma News Tribune for digging up this nugget - check out his column at thenewstribune.com for a full recap - but in another amazing bit of symmetry (to follow up on my earlier blog entry today) the Lions appear destined to draft Georgia quarterback Matt Stafford with the No. 1 overall pick come April. Don't worry, that's a good thing.

Why? Stafford is a product of Highland Park High in Dallas. The only other NFL quarterback the school has produced is ... Bobby Layne, purveyor of the Lions' last championship in 1957.

I'm calling it a day so I can finish my Christmas shopping before I visit the in-laws for dinner. I won't be back tomorrow, either, but here's a few leftovers from today's conference calls with Packers receiver Greg Jennings and coach Mike McCarthy.

• Jennings, who played at Western Michigan and grew up a fan of Barry Sanders, said he'd be rooting for the Lions if he wasn't playing against them this week. "I would, he said. "I don't think it's right to really root for a team to go 0-16. I don't think that any team should really go 0-16, but in this case they're going against the team that I'm on so I would have to say that they need to go 0-16."

• The Packers (5-10) are on their losing streak, having dropped five straight, but they are an NFL-best 13-1 in season finales since 1994. “It's not even about matching their intensity because we're desperate to get a win as well," Jennings said. "A lot of the games we've let slip right through our fingers in the waning moments of a game, so I would definitely say that they're not more desperate for a win than we are. ... This is definitely the finale of the season for both teams and we want to win probably more than anybody in the National Football League right now."

• McCarthy had little to say about reports early in the season that former Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre helped the Lions gameplan for the Packers days before Detroit's 48-25 September loss. "Brett Favre doesn't work here anymore," McCarthy said. "So, if he had opinions from the past those are his opinions. It doesn't factor into the Packers competing against the Detroit Lions."

• Lions running back Kevin Smith on his pursuit of 1,000 yards rushing. He's 116 yards short entering Sunday. "Who cares about the yards?" Smith said. "You think when you cut on PTI they're going to be talking about what I did productively or what Calvin (Johnson) did? No one cares about that. A thousand yards on an 0-16 team is equivalent to nothing in my eyes. Who cares if you don't win a game?"

• Lions cornerback Travis Fisher worked out with trainers today but said he doesn't know if he'll be able to play Sunday. I'd call him doubtful right now. Culpepper, Chuck Darby, Corey Smith and Dewayne White also sat out practice Wednesday. Johnson was limited by his bruised knee.