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My column Sunday on Culpepper-Stafford
posted by Pat Caputo at
10:14 AM
Sunday, August 30, 2009
About Me
- Name: Pat Caputo
- Location: Pontiac, Michigan, United States
Pat Caputo is a sports columnist for The Oakland Press. Caputo covered the Tigers from 1986-98, and Lions from 1998-2002 for The Oakland Press before becoming a columnist. Caputo was raised in Birmingham and played baseball and football at Groves High School. His photograph playing high school sports appeared in The Oakland Press. He has won numerous writing awards, including first place in column writing from the Michigan Associated Press and the Michigan Press Association, and from the Detroit Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He has been named among the Top Ten sports columnists in the nation by the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE), and has won honors in four of the APSE's six national award categories. He has garnered top national honors for his column writing and sports writing from the Local Media Association. Caputo, who has resided in Oakland County since he was nine years old, currently lives in Lake Orion. Caputo has a radio show weeknights and weekends on 97.1 FM, The Ticket, which is the flagship station for the Tigers, Lions and Red Wings. He also appears regularly on FOX 2 television on "SportsWorks."
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3 Comments:
Very good article, Pat. The best I've seen on the subject.
Its a tough decision. The biggest advantage I see that Culpepper has is that if you start Stafford no matter how much he struggles it'll be hard to ever remove him without damaging his confidence. The Matt Leinart / Vince Young treatment is not a good way to develop a high drafted QB.
The only thing I disagree with in the article is that "Either Stafford is going to learn on the job or the Lions are going to learn quickly he can’t handle the job." As you just pointed out Manning, Elway, and Aikman struggled badly as rookies so if he struggles this year it surely won't close the book on his career. And really, Joey got 4 years of horrid play before we moved on (and he's the one that requested the trade) and David Carr got 5 years in Houston. Even Ryan Leaf started for 3 full years after starting out of the gate and he was historically bad.
Stafford has a bigger contract than them or that anyone else has ever had, so I don't see too much of an advantage of "finding out early". He's going to get chance after chance to succeed no matter what. So all that really matters is doing what's best for his future. Not that I know what that is ...
My best guess is that its to start Culpepper for a few games to take some of the pressure off Stafford, and if Culpepper struggles at all and Stafford seems ready in practice then you put him in after a few weeks. But I have much more faith in Schwartz and Linehan to decide when it's best to start Stafford than I do in myself.
Michael C,
I think you're right. What I don't know is how the Culpepper injury will factor in on the decision. If Stafford is light's out good Thursday, it could mean a lot.
Caputo
Pat was the injury to culpepper
legit or was in a face saving move on his part or simply the lions protecting him from injury in the last game. seams too bizzare to be true.
Also Why does there have to be such emphasis on who starts. whats the rule about QB's can you play 1 1st half then one second or can you switch them in in and out per quarter seams to me since qb's mostly suck nowadays why not allow
alternating? whats the big deal.
anyway when your on the offence you run the plays they tell you to run and quarterbacks do make that big a difference from the players stand point do they?
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