I’ll admit it, I was fooled.
Roughly three weeks ago, Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford and former Lion T.J. Lang joined the teams’ multi-media journalist Tori Petry as part of the teams’ pre-2020 draft virtual festivities. As the video conference was wrapping up, Lang said he has one more question for Stafford:
“Dating back maybe three years ago,” Lang said, “when we were doing the ‘Talkin’ with T.J.’, you kinda showed off your math skills… I’m just going to make a number up — 9,758 times 618.”
Stafford answered with ease:
Putting the MATH in Matthew pic.twitter.com/Pd1Elctauw
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) April 25, 2020
That video clip went viral, reportedly getting over 100,000 views, and Stafford received a lot of accolades throughout the media — even being dubbed a Math Wizard by ESPN.
Today, during a video conference with the Detroit media, Stafford pulled back the curtain and revealed the truth behind hid genius:
“I can’t believe you guys fell for the math trick,” Stafford said. “T.J. and I have been doing that for years. He texts me the answer beforehand and I just read it off and sell it hard. I guess I deserve a Daytime Emmy, but for sure, not a math award.”
Matthew Stafford said the math problem he solved with @TJLang70 was a trick. TJ texted him the answer.
"I just read it off and sell it hard. I guess I deserve a Daytime Emmy." 😂 pic.twitter.com/LeX5iYlVci
— Brad Galli (@BradGalli) May 14, 2020
Well, at least I wasn’t alone in being fooled. Well done Matthew, well done.