Rest easy, Lions fans! Farmington Hills Harrison and Michigan State product, Drew Stanton will make his first career start under center on Sunday vs. the San Francisco (that’s fun to say) 49ers. Daunte’s inferno will be his back up.
Stanton, the All-Pro pre-season player, has had a rough go at it with the Lions since they drafted him in the 2nd round of the 2007 draft. In his rookie season, he hurt his knee on a special teams play (yes, you read that correctly). The following year he saw mop up time in three games and finished the year with a 95 QB rating. This season, Stanton was pitiful in relief in Green Bay, but recently led the Lions back into the game against the Cardinals.
Now it’s his time to shine.
I’ve been watching Drew Stanton ever since he was in high school, throwing and running circles around my alma mater in rivalry football games. In fact, I even played Stanton in baseball while he was at Harrison. He pitched against us and the coward walked me in four pitches (I swear, my knees weren’t shaking). Stanton is buddies with my brother’s housemate and by all accounts, Stanton is a really good dude.
One question remains: why has it taken this long to give him an opportunity to start?
The Lions probably felt they owed it to Daunte. After all, he was re-signed to be the starter this season until the Lions decided right before the draft that they would go with Stafford. We can’t complain about how well Culpepper has handled being benched for the rookie quarterback, so maybe the Lions, with nothing else to lose (but more games), felt they owed it to Culpepper to allow him to showcase his skills for potential off-season suitors.
That’s the reason I’d like to believe when trying to assess why the Lions wouldn’t give their former 2nd round pick a chance. A lot of Lions fans wonder if Stanton is simply the worst QB ever if he can’t even sniff some P-T with the Lions, but I don’t want to believe that. Culpepper’s clearly had his chance and he’s not helping anyone’s cause, mainly his own for next season. It’s now officially time to start the Stanton era…until Stafford gets back.
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