Detroit Lions LT Taylor Decker is back and he is pissed at the media for the ‘bullshit’ narratives they have pushed ever since he suffered a finger injury that ended up costing him the first eight games of the 2021 season.
On Monday, Decker spoke to Lions beat writers and he did not hold back about how he felt.
“Frankly I feel like the narrative of negativity surrounding my name, all year pretty much, has been bullshit,” Decker said. “I don’t feel like it’s been deserved.”
“The media pretty much all year has been pretty negative around me. I’m not going to act like I like that,” Decker said. “I think it was bullshit. I’ve played a lot of football here and I think I’ve played well. That’s that.”
Decker then went into some detail about just how serious his injury was.
“I had a full-spiral fracture that rotated and shortened. I had to get five screws and a plate put into my hand,” Decker said. “So, you know, they told me three months, and I’m playing at two months. I did everything I could to get back out on the field, and frankly, it was insulting people acted like I just didn’t want to play and wanted to be out for the entire season.”
He also spoke about how he re-injured his finger on the first snap of his first practice back and how that complicated things.
“We couldn’t see it on the MRI because there’s so much metal in there that you couldn’t read the MRI,” Decker said. “But my hand blew up, it was very swollen, I lost a lot of mobility that I had gained in my hand, so then at that point, it’s like, ‘All right, we need to let this thing calm down and then we’ll try again and get you back out there.’”
Decker added that it was frustrating for him to have to hear from his family and friends about potentially being traded.
“I shouldn’t have to talk to my parents about whether the team and the city that has become my home is going to trade me or get rid of me,” Decker said. “I shouldn’t have to talk about that. I just think it’s kinda ridiculous. Like I said, I think people in this building and a lot of the fanbase appreciates me, and I do think they know what I can bring to the table. But for some reason—and I’m not saying it was 100 percent of the media—but a lot of the media was hammering this narrative of basically to get rid of me when I want to be here and I want to help turn this organization into a winning organization. I’ve said that from day one and I’ve never faltered on that and I’ll never understand why. Nobody will be able to explain to me why and it’s just frustrating.”
Here is the full video.
