OAKLAND – If you are a hard-core Lions fan and watched 
If you saw the huddle of trainers and doctors around him as he sat on the bench, you might have thought about buying one those devices that enriches your oxygen and sleep in it until opening day. Who needs to breathe?
If you saw the towel draped over Stafford’s left hand, and then the thick wrap on the hand when he finally got off the bench and moved to the sideline, you might have wondered if it’s possible for a human being to live for 15 days without breathing.
You can all relax. Breathe in the fresh air of serenity, knowing that the leader of the offense is healthy and had nothing more than a weird scare Saturday night.
What looked like potentially a serious injury to Stafford’s left hand – the non-throwing hand – was just a bizarre injury that scared him.
He was hit on the left hand after delivering a pass and went to the turf. When he got up, he saw the back of the hand swelling.
There was no break. Instead, something that Stafford couldn’t quite explain in medical terms after the game had made the hand swell because of blood flowing into the back of the hand.
“It scared me watching my hand swell up,” Stafford said when he spoke to reporters after the game.
Later, someone mentioned that most of Detroit was freaking out when he left the field shaking his hand.
“I was freaking out, too,” he said. Laughing and showing where the hand had swollen. He was wearing a glove to cover it.
But until it was dead certain that Stafford would be healthy enough to lead the Lions into the regular season, anyone connected with the Lions – fans, coaches, club officials, ticket sellers, you name it – had to have worry wrinkles the size of one of Detroit’s rutted streets.
The eye test, and what was said at halftime, gave reason to think that Stafford dodged a serious injury when he was hit just after he delivered a third-down pass meant for
It was a harmless play, like dozens of others in every game – but with the potential to do great harm to the Lions’ playoff hopes.
On the fourth play of the second quarter, Stafford dropped back and whipped a pass toward Young, who cut from left to right toward the middle of the field. The ball was just out of Young’s reach.
A fraction after he released the ball, Stafford was hit by David Tollefson, a backup defensive end for the Raiders who rushed from Stafford’s left.
Tollefson’s helmet contacted Stafford’s hand, as Stafford turned to his left to avoid the hit. The helmet seemed to drive Stafford’s left hand into his shoulder pads. It was a clean hit, all the way.
Stafford walked to the sideline, shaking his hand. He quickly was surrounded by the training and medical staff and worried teammates.
When he finally emerged, Stafford had a wrap on the hand. Most likely, the wrap was holding ice on the hand to reduce swelling. That’s a common treatment procedure.
From the eye test – and it’s an indicator but not infallible - Stafford seemed in good spirits. He was smiling at times as he demonstrated with hand gestures what happened. He did not look down in the dumps, as though he had sustained a serious injury.
In his halftime interview on Channel 7, coach Jim Schwartz sounded as though the injury was not serious.
“He got his hand banged,” Schwartz said. “We’ll see. I think he’s OK.”
That offered some hope, and Schwartz said pretty much the same thing, adding that X-Rays were negative on any kind of serious injury.
Stafford’s injury occurred with 13:13 left in the half. That’s about 30 minutes in elapsed time – plenty of time for Schwartz to have gotten a reasonable evaluation from the trainers and doctors.
I’ll give you all 5,101 combined reasons why it is OK to keep the worry beads close by whenever Stafford looks to be in distress. They are the 5,038 yards he passed for last year, the 41 touchdown passes, the 10 wins he helped deliver, and the 12-year drought without a playoff appearance that ended.
They add up. Stafford means that much to this franchise.
He’s worth worrying about.
