Over the next week, we are going to go through the 10 plays that shaped the 2014 season for the Detroit Lions.
View the plays that shaped the Detroit Lions season to this point.
The play: Stephen Tulloch leaps into the air to celebrate a sack of Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers and tears his ACL.
The situation: The sturdy middle linebacker had just sacked Rodgers during the first quarter of the Lions’ 19-7 win over Green Bay in Week 3. It was a third down and forced another three-and-out for the Packers. To celebrate, Tulloch leapt in the air and appeared – although he has since denied this – to mock Rodgers’ trademark title belt celebration. He landed on his feet and almost immediately fell to the ground, clutching his left knee.
The reason it mattered: Tulloch had not missed a game in his career prior to that point, playing in 131 straight regular-season games and three playoff games. The injury had the makings of wrecking Detroit’s defense when it replaced Tulloch with the then-unproven Tahir Whitehead in the middle. Whitehead ended up having a decent season in place of Tulloch, recording 77 tackles with two interceptions. The injury also ended up with Josh Bynes landing with the Lions. He turned into a valuable special teams contributor and role player. Tulloch’s injury also showed the potential of Teryl Austin as a coordinator. He was able to navigate season-ending injuries to three defensive players (Bill Bentley, Nevin Lawson, Tulloch) in three weeks and still schemed his way to the NFL’s top run defense and one of the league’s top defenses overall. Like with Dominic Raiola’s suspension, the injury to Tulloch might have also given Detroit’s front office a view at Tulloch’s potential replacement.
What Tulloch said about the play: “It’s unfortunate, man. You’re passionate about the game. You want to get up and celebrate and it happened. People do it a million times. Unfortunately it happened to me, but I’ve been healthy for nine years in my career, never missed a game, let alone damn near plays. Sitting on the sideline is new to me, man. It’s sickening. But I’ll be all right. I’ll get right and be able to help this team.”