Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell offered some positive news in relation to the chances of rookie tight end Sam LaPorta making it back from injury to have a part to play in his team’s postseason action.
The 22-year-old suffered a knee injury during the Lions’ NFL Game Week 18 win over the Minnesota Vikings, and it had initially looked as if his season was over, but apparently things are not as bad as at first feared.
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The initial reports seem to suggest LaPorta would miss at least a game, maybe two, but Campbell made a more optimistic assessment as to where things stand for the Iowa Hawkeyes graduate,
“He’s improving,”
“He was out there at walkthrough. I don’t foresee us knowing anything or feeling like we have a really good picture until probably Friday afternoon. But every day we’re going to do more with him. He’s improving.” before adding on whether a green light will be given to LaPorta,
“If we don’t feel like he can help us, then there’s no need having him,”
The playoff clash will see a few intriguing match-ups, not least the sight of Lions quarterback Jared Goff returning, he hopes at least, to haunt the Los Angeles Rams, who traded him back in 2021.
Campbell has, unsurprisingly, sought to stop such talk of game subplots, instead looking to concentrate on the matter in hand, namely the Lions vs the Rams, nothing more, nothing less,
"We win as a team,"
"Man, this is about the Lions versus the Rams, and we win with three phases here and he's a huge part of that and all he's got to do is do his part and he knows that."
On that score, Rams head coach Sean McVay acknowledged the poor way in which that situation was handled, stating,
"The thing that I'll never run away from are mistakes that I've made in previous instances. But when you look back on it, the gratitude for those four years, all the good memories that we had. And then, when you end up making a change, that ended up being difficult. And could it have been handled better on my end? Absolutely. And I'll never run away from that,"
The game also sees Matthew Stafford return to face his former Lions team, whom he represented for 11 years prior to his move to the Rams as part of the aforementioned trade.
Goff was full of praise for his 35-year-old opponent,
"Ton of a respect for him and him as a player and everything he's done, he's a Hall of Fame player in my book and I saw this as an opportunity for me to build my own legacy and being at the ground floor of something special and something that we can hopefully build to even more special than right now,"
The match-up of the two QBs is sure to be quite a battle and, clearly, one that will decide which way this playoff clash will go.