Lions Finally Support Matt Stafford with Late-Game Heroics, Take NFC North Lead

As he stood in his own end zone with the ball on the 2-yard line, it seemed Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford had surely met a fourth-quarter comeback hurdle that was too tall.

The scoreboard wasn’t his greatest enemy, as the Minnesota Vikings led by only three points while threatening to spoil Detroit’s annual Thanksgiving Day football festivities. And the clock wasn’t throwing lightning bolts at him either. It read 5:02, which is the equivalent of roughly two days in gridiron time, especially with the Lions still holding all three of their timeouts.

No, the vast stretching field ahead was taunting Stafford. It had been doing that for the entire second half. Until this point, the Lions had managed a mere 24 yards of offense since halftime. Now Stafford—who owns and operates the league’s best white-knuckle-ride offense—needed either 98 yards to win the game or a still daunting roughly 65 yards to get kicker Matt Prater into reasonable field-goal range.

Just over three minutes, 10 plays and five Stafford completions later, the Lions took their first giant step toward another comeback that could only be watched through your fingers. Prater hit his first of two 40-plus-yard field goals to beat the Vikings 16-13 and take the NFC North lead.

The first one, a 48-yard kick, came after Stafford provided a historic holiday treat. He instantly turned around a dormant offense during the bleakest possible situation—and in doing so tied the record for most fourth-quarter comebacks in one season.

As David Mayo from MLive did here, now is a good time to remind you that it’s only Week 12, and there’s still over a quarter of the 2016 season remaining:

Matthew Stafford, with seven, has tied the NFL record for fourth-quarter comebacks in a season.There are five games remaining.

— David Mayo (@David_Mayo) November 24, 2016

The highlight of Stafford’s heroics this time was a 29-yard completion to wide receiver Anquan Boldin that had no business even being a pass attempt. The ball shouldn’t have been allowed to leave Stafford’s hand.

A crushing third-down sack with just over three minutes left seemed inevitable. For a split second, punting actually may have been the best-case scenario as multiple blitzers …

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