With today’s 27-23 win over St. Louis in the team’s home-opener, the Lions registered the franchise’s 50th home-opening win in team history. The Lions became the second franchise to record 50 wins in home-openers.
The win was also the team’s 44th victory on opening day, the fourth-most wins in NFL history on opening weekend.
HANSON’S RECORD SEASON
By playing in today’s game, K Jason Hanson has now played in 21 NFL seasons, all with the Detroit Lions. Hanson now holds the NFL record for the most seasons played with one team and for the most seasons played by any player with the team that originally drafted them.
In 2011, he set the NFL record for the most games played with one club and moved that total to 312. He is the only player to ever play 300 games with one team.
With three PATs in today’s game, Hanson moved past K John Carney (628) for seventh place on the NFL’s all-time career PATs list. Hanson now has 630 career PATs.
STAFFORD SURPASSES 8,000 CAREER YARDS IN 30 STARTS
Lions QB Matthew Stafford made his 30th career start today against the St. Louis Rams. With 172 yards in the first half, Stafford surpassed 8,000 career yards and joined Kurt Warner (8,739), Pro Football Hall of Famer Dan Marino (8,467), Tony Romo (8,044) and Aaron Rodgers (8,000) as the only quarterbacks to have at least 8,000 passing yards through 30 career starts in the Super Bowl era. Stafford became the fifth quarterback to accomplish this feat. Stafford entered the game with 7,840 passing yards through 29 starts.
Stafford registered his seventh career fourth quarter game-winning drive when trailing or tied as he led the Lions back to a 27-23 victory over the St. Louis Rams. Trailing 23-20 with 1:55 left to play and with only one time out, Stafford and the Lions went on a 9-play, 80-yard drive that lasted 1:45.
He threw for 355 yards in the win against the Rams. His 355-yard outing was the second highest tally in Lions history on opening day (QB Bobby Layne, 364 vs. Pit September 27, 1953). He also joins Layne as the only passers in team history with two 300-yard games on opening day, and Stafford is the first to do it in back-to-back seasons (305, at TB September 11, 2011).
It was Stafford’s 10th career 300-yard game, and he has thrown for 300 yards in exactly one-third of his 30 career starts.
Dating back to 2011, Stafford’s 355 yards was his fourth-straight 300-yard game.
With one touchdown in today’s game, Stafford moved past QB Joey Harrington (60, 2002-05) for fifth place on the team’s all-time passing touchdowns list.
Stafford also registered his first career reception when he caught a deflected pass and gained 3 yards on the play. His reception was the first by a Lions QB since QB Jon Kitna registered a 9-yard catch off a deflection in OT vs. Minnesota September 16, 2007.
Stafford’s 32 pass completions marked the sixth time in his career he has completed over 30 passes in a game. His 32 passes tie for the third-highest single-game tally of his career.
LIONS HEAD COACH JIM SCHWARTZ
On how he approaches Stafford when he has a stretch like he did at the beginning of the game:
“We talked a little bit after some of those drives. I think that one drive, I don’t think we had an incompletion that whole drive – it was 14 plays until the very end when we threw an interception. He’s smart enough; he knows what it is. It wasn’t like he was just having a bad day; he had a couple bad plays and they were able to make those plays. Like I said, we put that behind us. You have to be resilient. We knew there was going to be ups and downs over the course of the game; there’s going to be ups and downs over the course of the season, but you’ve got to have a demeanor that can allow you to bounce back from that and Matthew does.”
LIONS QB MATTHEW STAFFORD
On the Ram’s defense confusing him in the first half:
“No, no. The one where I was throwing on the left side to Pettigrew, that one was a good play; (the) guy undercut it. Really, the goal line fade, same kind of thing. You look at tape and those guys have been turning their backs the whole time. Thought the back shoulder would be there and the kid did a good job. Like I said, I didn’t throw great passes. Cortland Finnegan, he’s a high-price free agent and he showed why. It was a heck of a play getting all the way out to a comeback outside from the slot. It’s going to happen. Obviously you don’t want to have three – you don’t want to have three in the first five games and you don’t want to have three in the first half of the first one. But the guys, we believe in each other. I believe in all the guys in that locker room that we can get it done no matter what happens to start the game. That’s all we did. We went out there and put a little bit of a second-half together and got a win.”
