The Detroit Lions have named Matthew Stafford for the 2009 season, going as far as to say that he’ll keep playing–regardless of performance–unless he gets injured. Depending on who you ask, Stafford either played well enough in preseason to close whatever gap there was between him and the wiley vagabond Daunte Culpepper, or coach Jim Schwartz’s “competition” for the job was a sham. Culpepper, whose tiny hands will be sitting on the bench yet again, has gone out of his way to show support for Stafford, releasing a statement through the team:
“Now that the debate is over and the decision has been made regarding the starting quarterback in Detroit, I would like to make the following statement today so that tomorrow I can put all of my energy into helping our team prepare for our opponent,” Culpepper said in the statement.
Culpepper said he restructured the year left on his contract because he would have a chance to vie for the starting job and said he was “excited” when the Lions drafted Stafford No. 1. via.
Excited? So excited that he probably threw a floor lamp through his living room window. Credit to Culpepper for playing the hand he was dealt, and for recognizing the Black Quarterback/White Quarterback dynamic that can divide a locker room when teammates tend to fall in line behind one guy. But Stafford can’t do any worse than Dan Orlovsky’s leisurely stroll out of the end zone last season; and with that kind of baseline, the Lions could start a ‘58 Edsel under center and nobody would care. Or notice, really.
Here’s future Detroit Lion (?) Matthew Stafford making an appearance on Late Night with That Little Turd That Used To Be On SNL, courtesy of Sportscrack. Stafford gets conned into throwing balls at airborne plates with targets drawn on them, and I couldn’t be more impressed that dude actually throws a mean ball while wearing a sport coat, which, despite the name, is not sporty at all. That attribute might come in handy, because if the mental midgets running the Lions actually do reinvent their uniform scheme this season, there’s no telling what they’ll roll out…
Former Georgia quarterback and current NFL prospect Matthew Stafford is about a month away from the Brinks truck backing up to his front door. The only question remains, “From whom shall those riches flow?” Probably not San Francisco, as Niners coach Mike Singletary has already given Stafford his stamp of disapproval after noting that the quarterback responded negatively to questions about his parents’ divorce. It’s a round brown stamp, actually. From AJC, via Shutdown Corner:
Niners head coach Mike Singletary told KNBR (680 AM) in San Francisco this week that “if you’re going to look at drafting a guy in the first round, and you’re going to pay him millions of dollars, and asking him about a divorce about his parents, if that’s going to be an issue, uhhh, then you know what, maybe he doesn’t belong here.”
Stafford, a potential first-round draft pick, told the Detroit Free Press that the psychologist presumed Stafford had “unfinished business” about his parents’ split in high school.
My parents would get divorced if they weren’t so fat and ugly; who would take either one of them now? I wonder why Singletary would go out of his way to slap around a guy that his team doesn’t need anyway. Why would a defensive-minded coach need a seventh quarterback anyway? They already have a No. 1 pick in Alex Smith, who blows, yes, but what would a defensive-minded, run-first coach do with a decent quarterback, anyway? Besides make him stare at his brown stamp.
Stafford is working out with the Lions today, and if he doesn’t get therapy after that, he won’t be any good to anybody.
