| Detroit Free Press
Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford avoided serious injury and should not miss game time because of the right thumb injury he suffered in Sunday’s 30-27 win over Washington, NFL Network reported.
Stafford injured his thumb on a sack late in the first quarter, but stayed in the game and led the Lions to a late victory.
He said he had problems gripping the ball immediately after a hit by Kevin Pierre-Louis with 3:10 left in the first quarter. Lions trainers taped his thumb and the base of his hand after the series, and Stafford finished 24 of 33 passing for 276 yards and three touchdowns.
“I don’t know what happened,” Stafford said after the game. “It was on a play where I got sacked, they had a personal foul, so the next time I gripped the ball to throw it, it didn’t feel so hot.”
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Stafford went for X-rays after the game, which NFL Network reported were negative.
The quarterback is expected to undergo more testing today, though no one on the Lions expressed concern over Stafford’s injury Sunday.
Stafford, who missed the end of the Lions’ loss to the Minnesota Vikings while he was being evaluated for a brain injury last week, has played through hand injuries before with varying degrees of success.
In 2018, Stafford played with one game with a glove and another with a soft pad on the back of his left non-throwing hand after injuring his pinky finger in a game against the Seattle Seahawks. The Lions lost both games, and Stafford was sacked 16 times in those games, but he showed little effect from the injury.
In 2017, Stafford suffered a right hand injury in a loss to the Baltimore Ravens when defensive end Terrell Suggs inadvertently stepped on his hand. He was limited in practice in the days leading up to the next week’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but played with tape on his right ring and pinky fingers and threw for 381 yards while completing 81.8% of his passes in a Lions victory.
In 2016, Stafford played the final three games of the regular season and in the playoffs with a sprained middle finger on his right hand, when he used a finger-less glove to help him grip the football. He threw five interceptions in 19 quarters with the injury, and the Lions lost all four games.
And in 2011, Stafford played through a broken right index finger. He suffered the injury in an October win over the Denver Broncos, then after a bye week returned to throw nine interceptions in three games.
The Lions, who went 1-2 in those games. play two games in the next 10 days, at the Carolina Panthers on Sunday and home against the Houston Texans on Thanksgiving.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.