Lions Report: Inside Slant
In the end, quarterback Matthew Stafford had surgery after all. As recently as Jan. 3, both the Lions and Stafford said that surgery would not be required to repair the Grade 3 separation of the AC joint in his right shoulder.
That changed on Monday, Jan. 17 after Stafford again visited Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Ala. The shoulder was not healing so four days later, Andrews performed the surgery at his institute in Pensacola, Fla.
"Matthew's procedure (AC joint repair) today was very successful," Andrews said in a statement. "It went very well. We now have plenty of time for a full recovery in order for him to get ready for next season. The procedure is the same one that we have successfully performed on a number of NFL quarterbacks.
"Matthew has one of the strongest arms in the league and I am confident that he will be as strong as ever."
The rehabilitation process is expected to take four months, which means Stafford will be ready for training camp in August.
"After Matt hurt his shoulder in the Jets game, he was examined by both our medical staff and Dr. Andrews," said coach Jim Schwartz. "There was a consensus at the time to proceed with a rehabilitation program and not to have surgery.
"Subsequent evaluations toward the end of the season by our staff and Dr. Andrews also confirmed that Matt had been making good progress with his rehab. But after Matt's most recent visit to Dr. Andrews, it was determined by Dr. Andrews that Matt's healing process could be enhanced by undergoing surgery at this time."
Schwartz said Stafford had a choice. He could continue with the rehab or have the surgery. Stafford decided to take no chances.
"Matt decided to have the surgery now in order to ensure that he will have plenty of time to recover and rehab prior to the 2011 season," Schwartz said. "We have full confidence that Matt will be one-hundred percent before the start of training camp."
Stafford, 22, first injured the shoulder in Week 1 and then again against the Jets in Week 9. He started three games this season and finished only one.
In his first two NFL seasons, he has missed more games (19) due to injury than he's played (13).
Still, GM Martin Mayhew has no doubts about Stafford's durability going forward.
"I look at a guy who didn't miss any time in college," Mayhew said in his postseason press conference earlier this month. "He wasn't an injury-prone guy prior to getting here. So I don't think it's going to be an on-going issue. The doctors don't think it's going to be an on-going issue. We are going to get him healthy and he's going to play football next year."
Linebacker Zack Follett, though, expressed some doubt about Stafford's durability.
"He's a china doll right now," Follett said during an interview on a Fresno, Calif., radio station. "Anytime he gets hit, he goes down. Hopefully, it's just patiently waiting for him, because the kid is an awesome talent. He has a tremendous arm. The throws that he makes during practice when no one can touch him, he looks like an All-American quarterback. But put him in a game, and you hit his shoulder. So hopefully, say a couple prayers, keep him healthy next year, and the Lions can do some damage in the NFC."
Follett, in a subsequent radio interview, this one in Detroit, backed off his comments.
"I just used the china doll reference to describe his bad luck," Follett said. "It's the luck of the draw. He's had bad luck. I have no doubt that he can play a whole season. He's a tough kid. I'll tell you right now, I'm glad we have Matthew Stafford instead of the Bears' quarterback (Jay Cutler) because he goes in and plays with separated shoulders and wins games."
--The Lions finally rejoined the NFL in 2010. They were no longer the automatic win on everybody's schedule, no longer the butt of all the jokes across the league. They didn't threaten a playoff spot, but week in and week out they competed.
And when they finished the year winning four straight games -- winning two of them with their No. 2 quarterback and two others with their No. 3 quarterback -- they had produced more wins (six) than they had in the two previous seasons combined (two).
More importantly, they had at last expunged the stench and self-perpetuating culture of defeat.
"We want to give this city a winner," said center Dominic Raiola. "We want to make this organization a winner. These last four weeks, it's been a different feeling. We have learned how to win. When I talk about this being a different team headed in the right direction, it's finally evident.
"We've won four in a row and we know the nucleus of this team is coming back. We feel like we're ready to make a playoff run. That's our expectation now. We have the personnel to do it."
The Lions in 2010 stopped most of the negative streaks they had forged the previous three seasons.
"We have broken a lot of streaks this year and we've started some streaks," coach Jim Schwartz said. "We hadn't won a division game in a long time (19 straight) and we've won two in a row. We hadn't won on the road in a long time (26 straight) and we've won two in a row. We had the 0-16 season and other long losing streaks and now we've won four in a row.
"I don't know if that qualifies as a culture change. I didn't think the culture was bad when we were 2-10. It couldn't have been bad for the guys to mount the comeback that they have. It's more about experiences that we've gained from and having tough-minded players persevered through it."
There is still a long, hard road between 6-10 and making the playoffs, and there are still significant holes in the roster, particularly in the defensive back seven. But a stable foundation appears to be in place now. From general manager Martin Mayhew, to Schwartz and the coaching staff, to the offensive and defensive systems, to the majority of the players -- they will be entering their third season intact.
Raiola, for example, has been a Lion for a full decade and never played in the same system, with the same guards on either side of him, more than two straight years in 10 seasons.
"It's that continuity and stability that helped us overcome so much this season," he said.
The Lions won games with three different quarterbacks. Starter and franchise quarterback Matthew Stafford played in only three games because of right shoulder injuries. They played with three different running backs, five different middle linebackers, five different right cornerbacks. They even finished the season with a back-up kicker.
They had 18 players on injured reserve by the end of the year, including starters Stafford, defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch, kicker Jason Hanson, running back Kevin Smith, cornerback Alphonso Smith, right tackle Gosder Cherilus, and outside linebackers Zach Follett and Landon Johnson.
And yet, they found a way to finish with four straight wins.
"This is definitely going to carry over," said wide receiver Nate Burleson. "Six and 10 is not where I wanted to be, but to win four games in a row, a couple against our division rivals, that's huge for us.
"We are all familiar with the woes of this organization. For us to end up where we are right now, to see the maturity and the improvement throughout the season, it's definitely going to help us going into next year. There's not going to be that nervousness or anxiety about what might happen. We know what we can do when we play Detroit ball."
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