During the fourth quarter of last Sunday’s loss to the Baltimore Ravens, the Detroit Lions also lost quarterback Matthew Stafford for the remainder of the game when his hand was stepped on by Ravens defender, Terrell Suggs.

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The immediate fear for the Lions (and their fans) was that Stafford would be unable to play in a “must-win” Week 14 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

According to Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network, we can all breathe a sigh of relief as his sources have indicated to him that the Lions starting signal caller is “expected to start” on Sunday afternoon against the Bucs.

https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/939711525127901185

This is obviously great news, especially considering that on Wednesday, Lions head coach Jim Caldwell raised some doubts about Stafford’s availability.

From Detroit Free Press:

“We’ll kind of see what he can do as the week goes on,” Caldwell said Wednesday. “It’s not like it’s an insignificant injury. That’s not the case. It’s something that he’s going to have to really work at and deal with here during the course of the week to see where he is. He’s not out of the woods.”

If Stafford does have an “unforeseen setback” prior to the 1 p.m. kickoff, the Lions chances of winning will be greatly diminished as former University of Michigan quarterback Jake Rudock would get the starting nod.

This, of course, is not a knock on Rudock, but everyone knows the Lions chances of winning on a week-to-week basis is largely determined by how Matthew Stafford performs on the field.