Mike Freeman From Cbssports.com Says Lions Need To Prove Themselves
DETROIT -- Matthew Stafford was in a familiar position: outstretched, doctors and trainers peering and poking, people watching while holding their breath.
"A guy just fell on me awkward," Stafford said. "I'm moving around on it OK right now. We'll see."
It wasn't "awkward." Stafford actually had his leg slightly crushed after it was rolled on in the fourth quarter. Stafford wobbled to the sideline where trainers took a look and eventually moved him to a lengthy table where his right foot was re-taped. But by the time team trainers were done with their examination, the Atlanta Falcons had earned a crucial and gutsy 23-16 win.
This was a brutal, wonderful, frustrating and emotional game that also saw Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan temporarily depart with what the team described as a knee injury. It looked gruesome at first but he returned in what was one of the season's more gritty performances.
"It looked worse than it actually was," said Ryan, bravado talking. It looked bad because it was bad.
Thus in one game you saw two of the league's premier young throwing stars limp off the field and cause panic from the Midwest to the South.
But the Falcons deserve a great deal of credit for winning in this noisy environment and Ryan deserves credit for playing through a painful injury. There also was the fact that tight end Tony Gonzalez moved into second place on the all-time receptions list, a remarkable achievement. And at the beginning of the game, officials had to break up a near scrum between several dozen Lions and Falcons players.
Click HERE for the complete article
