In Play Magazine
Let me start off by first saying this. Folks, amateur or professional athletes don’t play games when they are "really hurt."
I personally know what it is like to play hurt. I took dozens of injections in my right arm for several years after suffering a torn rotator cuff and was told that the steroids, “Pain pills,” anti-inflammation drugs and injections that we were being fed to me were actually “healing drugs” and that they were perfectly safe.
We weren’t allowed to have real agents back then to protect us.
Guess what, while I was taking the steroids and the many pain injections I was doing irreparable damage to my right arm and after three or four years of injections, I was out of the game. In fact, as of this date, I can barely hold my arm straight out from my shoulder.
If you have a "Real separated shoulder" you don’t risk your career, and certainly the Lions would not risk Stafford’s career if his shoulder was really "separated". Let’s really be serious.
Leaving Stafford in this game if really hurt was risking $60 million dollars for the Lions, and risking the career of Stafford, so let’s quit the hero, "Win one for the Gipper" stuff.
He cannot possibly be playing with an injury as serious as a separated shoulder, unless they had injected him with some “Dream juice” folks, come on think about it huh?
In the old days I would buy the “Dream juice” story, God knows we have too many stories of the way the owners treated us players years ago; like plain meat and nothing but.
Would you inject Stafford with pain killers and not allow the pain to be felt, of course not! The pain is the signal from our body that says we’re hurt. And by playing hurt, we possibly can hurt ourselves more because of the original injury.
So, can we stop this hero talk now regarding Stafford please?
Let him direct the team to a winning season before we anoint him, this way maybe we can take some of the pressure off him that everyone is putting on him now.
He wins the “No time left game” against the worst team in the NFL, Cleveland, and all week our Detroit media praises this kid like he is the savior who has come to rescue the franchise and nothing can be farther from the real truth.
While he may be a little bigger and tougher than past sacrificial quarterbacks here in Detroit, he is no Joe Montana, Joe Namath, Bart Star or certainly not a Peyton Manning. He is not close to any of them.
This is not to say he can’t be a very good player even a star, but folks first they have to get a team around him and give him the resources to make the Lions a winner first and then if the assets are in place, he could be made into a star.
If you analyze this game again like the others he has played, he always throws interception after interception. In this latest Turkey Day debacle, he threw four picks and it could have easily have been six or seven.
I know the inept Lions are trying to sell asses in the seats, but this make believe Dog & Pony show is really a disingenuous effort at best. Who doesn’t see through this joke?
Promoting Stafford in this manner is just trying to put asses in the seats, and at worst, it could kill the career of a very promising quarterback. Then what?
In the Cleveland game I don’t think anyone was fooled by Stafford's actions, he was trying to stop the clock with an "alleged injury" not knowing that there was pass interference call and the Lions were going to get one more chance to win which they did.
It was a good conclusion to the game for us, but we all went nuts thinking that Bobby Lane or Bart Starr had come to Detroit to save the day. By the way, even Bobby Lane or Bart Starr in their prime, couldn’t win with this team…sorry! There aren’t enough assets in place to do what they are supposed to do, win!
Lastly, the Lions really showed a lack of respect as far as Culpepper is concerned.
Why the hell didn't someone tell him that he was not playing this game? He has been a total class act since arriving, trying to play when given the chance and helping and assisting in the development of Stafford.
Now the Lions choose to embarrass him with this lack of class on this Thanksgiving Day!
But what else would you expect from this organization?
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