Matthew Stafford may be a man (man, a man, a man), but this Sunday in Baltimore, he'll be a man on the bench, resting his shoulder -- the Detroit Lions have announced that Daunte Culpepper will be their starting quarterback this week.
Daunte Culpepper To Start For Lions Sunday In Baltimore
“I’m sore enough and still in enough pain that we collectively felt it was probably a better decision to not play this week,” Stafford said today on WJR-AM (760).
Stafford, the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft, suffered an AC joint separation Nov. 22 against Cleveland when a defender drove his left shoulder into the ground. He didn’t miss a snap until he took another shot Sunday at Cincinnati.
“If he hadn’t taken that hit in the fourth quarter of the Cincy game we wouldn’t be having this discussion,” coach Jim Schwartz said. “It was a very, very similar hit that he took in the Cleveland game, and we want to avoid the situation where it can become something that’s chronic.
From SB Nation’s Pride of Detroit, this announcment probably came so early in the week as to avoid confusion within the team.
Although Jim Schwartz initially planned on keeping things tight-lipped to prevent Baltimore from gaining more knowledge than they needed, he decided today to go ahead and announce that Matthew Stafford is out this week. Daunte Culpepper will be the starting quarterback, and I sort of think the reason Schwartz decided to announce a decision now is to prevent another miscommunication from happening like on Thanksgiving. Culpepper thought he was going to start, as did basically everybody, but Stafford ended up playing instead.
Only in Detroit.
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