Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford made the injury report late last season, with a designation of a back injury for the last month of the year.
Perhaps because it never kept him off the field, nothing was made of it.
But team website writer Mike O’Hara said on a WJR podcast that Stafford was actually playing with fractures.
“He had a broken back last year,” O’Hara said, via Kyle Meinke of MLive.com. “Broken bones in his back.”
When asked by his co-host if he was supposed to say that, O’Hara replied: “It’s been reported.”
(Narrator voice: It was not reported.)
Stafford clearly wasn’t himself over the last month of the season, but there was never any recognition (until now) the injury was serious in any way.
He was listed on the injury report with the back thing beginning after Week 13, when he took 11 hits in a loss to the Rams. He remained on the report the rest of the year.
Stafford has started 128 straight games, the sixth-longest streak by a quarterback in league history.