DETROIT — For much of Sunday’s season-opening 27-23 victory over St. Louis, Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford fought through a surprisingly inept performance.
He threw three interceptions in the first half alone and simply didn’t look like the same player who led the Lions to the playoffs for the first time in more than a decade last season.
But when it mattered most, when the Lions were on the verge of getting upset by the Rams, Stafford’s greatness finally reemerged.
“I don’t think there was one time where one of us ever doubted him,” center Dominic Raiola said. “He’s the face of this franchise. We believe that wholeheartedly. We’re going to be behind him through tough times and good times.”
This time, it was a little of both.
Stafford’s struggles helped the Rams, a two-win team a year ago, build some confidence and put the Lions in serious trouble.
After St. Louis scored to take a 20-13 lead with 9:45 remaining, something changed. It was suddenly a different Stafford again. He put his earlier failures aside and responded like a winner.
First, Stafford led the Lions on a quick 80-yard drive to tie the score. Then, after the Rams had taken a three-point lead with 1:55 to go, Stafford rallied the Lions again with another 80-yard drive.
He capped it with a 5-yard touchdown pass to running back Kevin Smith with 10 seconds left to secure the victory before a noisy crowd at Ford Field.
This was the sixth time Stafford threw three interceptions in a game during his four-year NFL career, but the first time he won doing it.
“You’ve got to keep grinding,” he said. “You’ve got to trust yourself. You’ve got to trust in everybody.”
On the final two possessions, Stafford completed 10-of-12 passes for 142 yards, including 7-of-9 for all 80 yards on the winning drive. One of the two incompletions was a spike to stop the clock.
After seriously flirting with being the goat, Stafford came back to be the hero, with only a few seconds to spare.
It was a strange game for him and the Lions’ offense.
They drove 72 yards in 13 plays, seemingly with ease, on the first drive of the game, only to have Stafford waste it all by throwing an interception on first-and-goal from the 3-yard line.
Stafford shook that one off and the Lions came back with a 14-play, 80-yard drive the next time they got the ball to take a 7-3 lead.
But after rolling off 152 yards on 27 plays and controlling the ball for nearly 15 minutes on those first two possessions, the Lions were held to a total of 117 yards their next seven possessions.
“We might be the only team that makes it look so easy and so hard at the same time,” Raiola said.
When Stafford’s passes weren’t sailing high or wide, his receivers and running backs often were dropping them.
It got ugly for quite a while, much to the irritation of the home crowd.
“When stuff doesn’t go your way, you try too hard,” Stafford said. “I’m not putting them right on (target), they’re (his teammates) trying to pick me up. They’re trying that much harder.
“I was frustrated. It’s frustrating for everybody, but we’ve been together for a while now. Guys believe in each other. That’s what it’s all about.”
Stafford didn’t change despite his long stretch of uncharacteristic misfires.
“Things like that, they don’t faze him,” receiver Calvin Johnson said.
On the two timely drives at the end, Stafford took the Lions 80 yards in five plays and 2 minutes, 26 seconds, and then 80 yards again in nine plays and one minute, 45 seconds.
He went from terribly flawed to flawless in an instant.
“You have to be resilient,” Lions coach Jim Schwartz said. “There’s going to be ups and downs during the course of a season. You’ve got to have a demeanor that can allow you to bounce back from that. Matthew does.”
Early on, Stafford tried to squeeze a few passes into tighter coverage than he expected against a defense that took a bend-but-don’t break approach most of the time.
In the final minutes, he showed that even on a bad day, he can be one of the game’s best clutch quarterbacks.
The Lions relied on some of those same late-game heroics to win some tight ones last year, and that’s the way they started off this season.
“I thought these days were behind us,” Schwartz, jokingly, told his players after the game, according to Raiola.
“Makes it hard on the head coach on the sideline, makes it hard on the fans watching the game,” Schwartz said in his post-game news conference. “But this team is used to coming back.”
They won’t do it against the top teams if Stafford isn’t more consistent, but the magic touch at the magic moment is a nice thing to have in desperate times.
EXTRA POINTS
Bill Bentley, who started at cornerback in his NFL debut, left the game in the second half because of concussion-like symptoms.
… Joique Bell, a former Wayne State running back, scored a touchdown on his first NFL regular-season carry, a 1-yard run.
… Kicker Jason Hanson became the first player in NFL history to play for the same team in 21 seasons.
… Schwartz, on line judge Shannon Eastin becoming the first woman to officiate a NFL game: “It’s a good milestone. We didn’t think about it at all during the game.”
… Schwartz, on the replacement crew comprised mostly of small-college officials: “I thought they did a good job controlling the game.”
… Receiver Titus Young received a 15-yard penalty for head-butting a St. Louis player. “Dumb decision,” Schwartz said of his often-controversial, second-year player.
