Anyone who follows the Detroit Lions, and also has a brain, knows that if Matthew Stafford were to ever suffer a serious injury, the Lions season would be over in an instant.
Well, on Thanksgiving Day, Lions’ fans held their breath when Stafford injured his right ankle in the fourth quarter. At first look, the fear was that he may have hurt his knee, but he was able to come back into the game on the next series.
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The injury occurred just as Stafford completed a 43-yard touchdown pass to Marvin Jones, who made an amazing catch between two Minnesota defenders before making his way into the end zone. The touchdown, followed by a Matt Prater extra point, cut the Vikings lead to 27-23 with 14:16 left in the fourth quarter.
Though Stafford was able to return to the game, he was clearly not himself and the Lions ended up losing the game 30-23.
Following the game, Stafford talked about what happened on the play he was injured.
“I was just throwing the ball,” Stafford said. “I knew we had 12 guys on the field for the defense and threw the ball up to Marv, made an unbelievable catch and score. Got rolled up on, wasn’t sure what happened. But I was able to keep playing.”
Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press posted the following video of Stafford hobbling off the podium after his post-game comments.
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As you can see in the video, Stafford is clearly favoring his right ankle, but he seems to think all will be well moving forward even though he is not 100%.
“Ticker’s still ticking so I’ll be all right,” Stafford said.
Matthew Stafford and his Lions teammates will have a few extra days to get healthy before the travel to Baltimore to take on a very good Ravens defense.
*H/T to the Detroit Free Press for the quotes used in this article.
