ALLEN PARK — Everson Griffen will make his Detroit Lions debut on Sunday against, of all teams, the Minnesota Vikings. You know, the team for which he starred during the first decade of his career.
And to say he’s motivated to face his old team, well, that might be something of an understatement.
Because he sounds mad as hell at the coach.
“They gon’ put some respect on my name,” Griffen said. “He gon’ put respect on my name, that’s all I’m saying. … I got something coming for him on Sunday.”
Griffen was speaking with reporters for the first time since Detroit acquired him in a trade with Dallas last week. Due to COVID onboarding protocols, he could not join the team until this week. Then he saw Zimmer call him “a good player” in the Star Tribune, and, well, let’s just let him take it from here.
“I got a little frustrated when I read that comment, what Zimmer said about, ‘Oh, Everson was a good player,’” Griffen said. “Like, Coach Zimmer wasn’t just a good coach, he was a great coach to me. So for him to call me a good player, that kind of hurt my feelings. So on Sunday, I’m really looking forward to playing the Vikings and showing them that I am a great player.”
No kidding. The comment — “Everson was a good player for us, so wish him well, just not this week” — seems innocent enough. Zimmer almost certainly didn’t mean it as any kind of slight. But try telling that to Griffen, who had four Pro Bowl seasons, one All-Pro nod, 74.5 sacks and 176 quarterback hits in 10 seasons with the club before departing last offseason.
Griffen was so offended by the quote that he referenced it 11 different times in his 10-minute chat, even when the question was about something else entirely.
Asked whether he was fired up to see old teammates, Griffen said: “I miss guys. I miss Harrison, I miss Anthony, I miss EK, I miss Zimmer. So when Zimmer said that about that — I’m a good player — all right, we gon’ see who a good player is on Sunday. All right? That’s what I got for him.’”
Asked whether he had found new teammates in Detroit who would help him with his multi-person sack dances, Griffen said: “I’m just fortunate to be around a good group of guys that took me in, and they respect me, and I just want to play hard for them. That’s what it’s about. It’s about the guy across from me doing their job, and me doing my job together to win. That’s what I’m here for. I’m not here to play no games. I’m not here to talk no mess about nobody. I’m not here to call nobody no good players. I’m here to win and execute my assignment. That’s what they’re going to get for 60 minutes, and we gon’ see who is a good player at the end, and who’s going to be a great player at the end, ‘cause the tape not gon’ lie.”
So safe to say, at 32 years old, you think you’re still a great player?
“Like, he wasn’t just a good coach to me,” Griffen said. “He was a great coach. He helped me improve, he helped me grow. I don’t ever talk bad about people, so for him to call me a good player, all right, I got something coming for him on Sunday.”
Griffen should get plenty of opportunities to tee off on Sunday. The Lions’ pass rush hasn’t been very good this season, ranking 27th in sacks (10), 25th in sack rate (3.91%), and 26th in pass-rush win rate (37%). Now they’ve placed defensive end Trey Flowers and edge Julian Okwara on injured reserve, further depleting the attack.
Griffen, meantime, is a four-time Pro Bowler who has racked up 77 sacks and 181 quarterback hits since 2011. Both figures rank sixth among all defensive ends in the league. Simply put, he was one of the most-feared and most-productive pass rushers during his 10-year reign in Minnesota.
Nobody knows that better than Detroit, which Griffen has victimized for more sacks — 16 — than anyone else in the league. He was especially tough in a 2018 game where he sacked Matthew Stafford 1.5 times and hit him three times overall. That led a Vikings pass rush that hit Stafford an astounding 17 times that day, and sacked him 10 times. That set a Minnesota record for sacks in a game, and a Detroit record for sacks allowed in a game.
Now Griffen is so upset, he says he wants to do the same thing to his old team.
“Let us set the sack record against the Vikings,” he said. “Because I’m just a good player? Right? All right.”
All right, Everson. And good luck to whoever has to line up across from him on Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium.
“(Zimmer’s) got a good player comin’ his way, OK?” Griffen said. “He gon’ see on Sunday what he got coming for him.”
