No timetable has been established for Matthew Stafford's return from his latest right shoulder injury, and if what happened earlier this season is any indication, no timetable will be made public, either. Even so, Tom Kowalski reported this earlier today:
The Detroit Lions fear that quarterback Matthew Stafford might be lost for the season, according to a source close to the situation, after preliminary tests showed that he has a Grade 3 separation of his right shoulder.
Stafford's right shoulder injury that kept him out during the first part of the season was a Grade 2 separation. A Grade 3 would likely keep him out for the rest of the season and force the Lions to place the former No. 1 overall pick on injured reserve.
Lions head coach Jim Schwartz was asked about this report during a radio interview. As expected, he declined to share any information with the public about Stafford's injury.
"We don’t share results of MRIs or anything else with members of the media or anybody else other than the player and the staff here," Schwartz said in his weekly radio show on WXYT 97.1-FM. "Matt wasn’t able to finish the game; he was very sore, and we’ll get him back on the field as soon as we can. And that’s been our approach with reporting injuries from the very beginning."
Although the Lions don't want to make any information about Stafford public, if he's done for the year we will obviously find out. The team would have to place him on injured reserve, ending Stafford's season. It's unclear if that move would happen this week or if additional time to gather information is necessary, but I have a feeling we'll find out if Stafford will be back at all in 2010 sometime this week.