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Michigan realtor's Detroit Lions jersey exchange postponed

UPDATE: The jersey swap will not take place Friday as planned. Jeff Glover told Fox 2 that the event had to be postponed due to "outside circumstances."

Unless it is a Jameson Williams jersey, a Detroit Lions' No. 9 jersey might lead to some sideways looks throughout metro Detroit this weekend, and one local Detroit realtor is helping fans who are looking to swap out their old Matthew Stafford apparel before he faces the Lions this weekend on a new team.

Jeff Glover, a metro Detroit realtor of 21 years and a Lions fan since birth, is offering some help to any Lions fans looking to move on from an old Stafford Lions jersey in the build-up to the Detroit Lions' first-round playoff matchup with the Los Angeles Rams.

If you have an old Matthew Stafford jersey from his days playing on the Detroit Lions, you can trade it in and get a new one of a current player courtesy of metro Detroit realtor Jeff Glover, who is running a jersey exchange on Friday, Jan. 12 in Livonia.
If you have an old Matthew Stafford jersey from his days playing on the Detroit Lions, you can trade it in and get a new one of a current player courtesy of metro Detroit realtor Jeff Glover, who is running a jersey exchange on Friday, Jan. 12 in Livonia.

Glover announced he is hosting a jersey swap Friday from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at Twin Peaks restaurant in Livonia for any fans wanting to exchange their Stafford Lions jersey for a player on the current team. He said he plans to buy 1,000 jerseys of Jared Goff, Amon-Ra St. Brown and Aidan Hutchinson to exchange with any "gently-used and freshly-washed" Stafford Lions jersey. The jerseys are replicas from online suppliers, not officially licensed jerseys from the NFL. No T-shirts will be accepted.

"I go to pretty much every home game and it drives me crazy seeing so many Stafford jerseys in the crowd still — he's an active competitor," Glover told the Free Press. "Imagine if you were Jared Goff, you're leading this team on a run and you've taken us further in three years than Matthew did in over a decade, and you look out in the stands and you see all sorts of Matthew Stafford jerseys."

The Lions are set to host the L.A. Rams in their first home playoff game in 30 years, and the matchup has been sweetened with a juicy subplot thanks to a quarterback swap between the teams three years ago. The Lions sent out Stafford in exchange for Goff and three draft picks, which turned out to be a win-win move for both sides involved. The Rams won a Super Bowl and the Lions turned around the franchise, winning their division for the first time in three decades.

The Goff-Stafford storyline has been a major focus throughout the week for Detroit fans, who are excited for the first playoff game since 2016 with seemingly the best chance yet to break the drought without a playoff win.

Detroit Lions fans enter Ford Field prior to the regular season finale against the Minnesota Vikings at Ford Field on Jan. 7, 2024 in Detroit.
Detroit Lions fans enter Ford Field prior to the regular season finale against the Minnesota Vikings at Ford Field on Jan. 7, 2024 in Detroit.

Some Lions fans are making sure they are doing the most they can to support the current team and cut any support for Stafford, the man standing in the way of potentially making history despite being the face of the Lions for 12 seasons.

Glover came up with the idea for a jersey swap weeks ago before it was set in stone that the Lions and Rams would have a postseason reunion. Ultimately, he decided to go through with the plan to help fans show support for Goff and the rest of the current team, regardless of the playoff opponent.

He started searching for as many Goff jerseys as possible during the final weeks of the regular season for the jersey swap. He purchased 700 before moving over to other players to reach 1,000, which he secured from "a bunch" of different suppliers online.

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"I gathered all the jerseys over two weeks ago," Glover said. "To be clear, they are replica on-field jerseys, so they are really high-quality jerseys. To gather that many jerseys in a short period of time is nearly impossible. That's why out of the 1,000 jerseys, about 700 of them are Jared Goff and the rest are a mix between Hutchinson and Amon-Ra St. Brown."

Glover didn't want to get into the details of exactly how much money he's spent on the campaign but did say it has cost him over $50,000.

He said since announcing the jersey swap, he has received a very strong interest from the community and expects to be out of jerseys quickly. He hopes to have as many Goff jerseys in the building as possible for the first-ever home playoff game at Ford Field.

"I'm so passionate that we support our current quarterback and this is an opportunity to do so," Glover said. "I think he'd be very appreciative of (fans) wearing his number versus our opponent's number."

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan realtor's Detroit Lions jersey in exchange postponed