Pride Of Detroit Podcast: Lions Vs. Bears Recap

Sorry.
It’s not like Schwartz was being “secretive” as you said. He said the wind was a major factor. Why would he lie about that? Just to protect Mathew from another “China Doll” label? Doubt it. Why would he care if people think Stafford is a “china doll”? He certainly hasn’t so far. No, I think he is gonna go by what Matthew says. If Matthew says he can play, Schwartz will play him. He won a game with a separated shoulder for pete’s sake. If I’m Schwartz and he says he’s good, I play him.

Secondly, using just the eye test, I don’t see how his accuracy was that much worse (even with the wind) in this game than it was when he was playing badly in Dallas for instance. He had a better completion rate than Cutler and there were a TON of dropped passes. (Not to mention the fact that you can see on video how a couple throws were totally taken by gusts of wind. Which is another reason I don’t see why nobody can accept the wind explanation. You can actually see it happening.) He also made some pretty good throws. And I understand it’s pretty much opinion (especially not knowing the playcall, routes, etc) but I think most of those INTs were the result of bad decisions/bad communication as opposed to just inaccurate passing.

Now I understand what you’re saying about the “come here” motion and the clap coming out of the huddle. There’s no doubt his finger was hurt, but I just don’t think you can definitely say it had a major effect on his game. Especially when he explicitly said it didn’t. I played ice hockey growing up and I played through a bunch of minor injuries and let me tell you, as soon as that puck is dropped, whatever pain I had, went away. The game was all there was. Sure I ended up re-injuring some things because of this, (I had a shoulder issue for like a whole season in high school) but I think for a competitor like Stafford, the way he treats his finger when he’s not throwing is gonna be very different than when he IS throwing.

Thirdly, I just don’t understand why nobody can believe what the players and coaches said. Did they have a meeting to discuss what fake excuse they were gonna give so nobody knows the REAL extent of Stafford’s secretively debilitating injury? Despite his good throws? If so, why would they choose a lame a$$ excuse like blaming it on the wind? It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

I feel like this is just a case where people are gonna believe what they want to believe no matter what.