Lions mum on Stafford’s status

By: Michael Niziolek

In Play! Magazine

Matthew Stafford (knee injury) missed practice for the third time in four days on Thursday. Head Coach Jim Schwartz said the quarterback was improving on Wednesday, but he didn’t have much to say about the situation on Thursday.

“I’m just going to let our injury report handle where we are with the quarterback,” was all Schwartz said.

He talked generally on how the coaching staff handles balancing a player’s injury and the need to win every week, but kept away from talking about Stafford specifically. Schwartz said in order for a player to play with an injury that player needs to be able to effective…

“I think the thing that you need to balance with any player, and I assume you’re talking about the quarterback, but any player, when you talk about an injury, you balance their ability to play, their ability to be effective on the field, their potential to make an injury worse, you balance all of those things,” Schwartz explained. “If a player is out there and he can get through but he can’t be effective in his role then it doesn’t make any sense to play him. It pertains to every single position.”

Last week the Lions waited until Sunday to reveal who would start against Pittsburgh and with only one day to go until they travel to Green Bay to take on the Packers they likely follow a similar strategy. Although with Daunte Culpepper taking most of the snaps this week at practice and a bye week next week it seems unlikely Stafford would get the call.

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