Eric King Out for Season; Calvin Johnson's Injury Not "Significant"

Quite a few new injuries happened during Sunday's game against the Steelers, one of which turned out to be pretty serious.  Cornerback Eric King first had an interception nullified because of a roughing the passer penalty, and his day went from bad to worse when he hurt his shoulder.  The injury is so severe that the Lions placed him on injured reserve, which is a big blow to an already struggling secondary.  King hasn't been particularly bad, so losing him isn't good when there are already depth issues.

One piece of good news is that Calvin Johnson's injury isn't too bad.  This is what Jim Schwartz said about it:

"I wouldn't label his as significant right now," Schwartz said. "He had some tests done and we'll know more Wednesday."

By now we all know that Schwartz loves to use the word "significant" when describing injuries, which doesn't really provide us with a ton of information.  I imagine that's intentional and something he gets from Bill Belichick, but it makes it tough to get a good read on injuries.  Although we do know that Calvin Johnson has a short-term injury, who knows if he will be back this week or not until after the bye.

The same can be said for Matthew Stafford, whose status for the Packers game on Sunday is also extremely up in the air.  We didn't really learn anything new about his injury, but Schwartz did make it clear that the upcoming bye week will not change how decisions are made.  That means that if Stafford is healthy enough to play, he will play.  Schwartz said they want to win this game, so being at as close to full strength as possible will be important.  If that means that Stafford will have to play at less than 100%, it looks like Schwartz will consider doing that.

In other injury news, Jerome Felton, Casey FitzSimmons, and Jason Hunter all got hurt against Pittsburgh.  Felton injured his shoulder and ankle; FitzSimmons hurt his thigh; and Hunter suffered an ankle injury as well.  Schwartz characterized their injuries as "either day-to-day or week-to-week," so it looks like if they don't play on Sunday against Green Bay, they should be back for the Rams game after the bye.