Lions' comeback win over Browns one for the ages
Ironic, if not fitting, that the Lions' two wins this season both have come at home in games that were blacked out on local TV. And too bad, too, especially with today's game, because that was a finish that had to be seen to be believed.
Matthew Stafford looked like he was down for the count. And he was until Cleveland's Eric Mangini called a timeout both to settle his defense and to yell at the officials following a pass-interference call on that Hail Mary pass with 0:00 on the clock. Mangini appeared upset about the Lions trainers getting Stafford off the field without any penalty for a charged timeout they didn't have, though there was no time to run off on an already expired clock. (Updated: And by rule (Rule 4, Sect. 5, Article 4), yardage isn't marked off until a second extra timeout is charged due to injury.)
Stafford then caught a break, as he shook off the team's medical staff and got back in the game for the final play, something he wouldn't have managed if not for Mangini's timeout.
"I just went up to (offensive coordinator Scott) Linehan and said, 'I can throw,'" Stafford said after the game, his shoulder -- it looked like a sprained AC joint of undetermined severity -- wrapped in a huge ice pack. "I got out of the way of all the doctors. Once one of them helped me up (off the field), they weren't going to stop me."
This injury might now, though. At this point, you'd have to list Stafford as doubtful for the Thanksgiving game. (Green Bay's also going to be shorthanded, with CB Al Harris and LB Aaron Kampmann likely out.) That was to have been Stafford's national-TV debut as an NFL quarterback. And coming off a record-setting day -- he became the youngest QB in history to throw 5 TDs in a game (two weeks after throwing 5 INTs in a game) and his 422 yards were an NFL rookie record -- that's obviously a looming disappointment.
But the lasting impression from today's last two plays is going to have some staying power. And if nothing else, it's a sign of hope for the future, a glimpse of what's possible for this offense, even as you acknowledge these were the 1-8 Cleveland Browns. Four of the rookie No. 1 overall pick's five TDs went to: third-year WR Calvin Johnson (career-high 161 yards), second-year RB Kevin Smith (career-best 104 rec. yards), rookie RB Aaron Brown and rookie TE Brandon Pettigrew.
And as Smith put it afterward, "Now, if the media asks, 'Is that something you can build on?' -- you can build on something like that."
