Culpepper to start against Colts
Daunte Culpepper will start the Lions’ third preseason game on Saturday against Indianapolis over first overall pick Matthew Stafford, Detroit head coach Jim Schwartz announced today. He added that Culpepper will play into the second quarter before giving the ball up to Stafford.
Schwartz insists that competition for the starting job on September 13 at New Orleans is still wide open.
“I don’t want to handicap it one way or the other,” Schwartz said. “But the final decision has not been made.”
Stafford, a rocket-armed Georgia product, has looked shaky in two preseason efforts. His poor accuracy through two exhibition contests has led to him completing only 12 of 27 passes with two interceptions. The young QB looked especially green in his first preseason start last week, during which his passer rating was a mere 14.6.
Culpepper, a 10-year veteran with Minnesota, Miami and Oakland, played five games for the Lions last season. He threw for 4 touchdowns and six interceptions while contributing to the worst regular season record in NFL history. But although he possesses a boatload of experience over Stafford along with two thirty touchdown seasons under his belt, Stafford’s raw talent is making this race tight. Jim Schwartz, welcome to the NFL.
“It’s going to be based on the information we have at hand,” he said, “not from wetting our finger and holding it up in the air, not from taking a poll and not from an ‘ask the audience’ lifeline or anything like that.”
He added, “We’re going to do what’s best for our club. We’re going to do what’s best for the guy that we drafted, not what somebody outside of the building says and not what worked best for another player. Every player is different.”
