If the Detroit Lions' business department spent any time envisioning a catastrophic scenario for the 2010 season, it probably played out something like Sunday's game at Chicago.

The sight of second-year quarterback Matthew Stafford grimacing in pain after a brutal sack by the Bears' Julius Peppers -- the one player Detroit knew it had to keep away from Stafford -- must have caused a lot of stomachs to drop in the Lions' front office.

Less than two quarters into the season, the nightmare had arrived. And in broad daylight. It was a road game, too, meaning everyone back in Detroit got to see it. Probably in high definition, too.

Losing Stafford for any appreciable length of time isn't going to help the team sell tickets. That's what logic says. Still, the Lions tell me this morning (without revealing numbers) that they've had the best Monday-morning ticket sales since individual game tickets went on sale over the summer. They say they're confident Sunday's opener at Ford Field against the Philadelphia Eagles (0-1) will be a sellout (the team has to sell 54,500 tickets at the 65,000-seat stadium to have the game aired locally).

Despite the final score, the loss of Stafford and the weird, silly and stupid but legitimate ruling on Calvin Johnson's non-touchdown at the end, fans saw a Lions team play step for step with the Bears. Being competitive in losses is an improvement for Detroit, and that will keep some fans coming back. That won't last without victories.

Stafford sidelined doesn't help anything. Reports today say he'll be out at least two weeks, and possibly up to six. If they lose those games, local television blackouts will be commonplace again. The team had told me a couple weeks ago it expected, at worst, just one or two blackouts rather than four or five of the eight home games.

Fans' September tolerance, fueled by the perpetual optimism that the start of every new season brings, won't last long if the team struggles without Stafford. Their patience with this team hangs by by the slenderest of threads, and that thread frayed some more Sunday.

Backup quarterback Shaun Hill has had some good games in his career with the San Francisco 49ers, but there's a reason the 30-year-old quarterback is a career second-stringer and was deemed expendable and traded to Detroit. It's reflected in paychecks: He'll make $1.5 million this year. Stafford is in the second year of a six-year deal is and is due to make just $395,000 but the team is expected to exercise a $17.5 million bonus option on him that's prorated through 2014. Overall, Stafford's deal is worth a potential $78 million if he meets all incentives -- which will be hard if he's going to suffer an endless string of shoulder injuries.

Sunday's injury was Stafford's third major shoulder incident since joining the Lions. Last year, his non-throwing shoulder was hurt at the end of a game, but he famously returned to throw a short touchdown to beat the Cleveland Browns. He injured it again in a loss to the Cincinnati Bengals and was then put on injured reserve.

Stafford is the face of the franchise. He's the one on billboards. He's the one fans cautiously are hoping is the team's first legitimate franchise quarterback since Bobby Layne two generations ago. They're wearing his jersey. They believe he's the anti-Joey Harrington.

Stafford is supposed to be The One. And that brings us to The Culprit.

Left tackle Jeff Backus, who turns 33 next week, will be paid $4.95 million dollars this year to protect Stafford's blindside. He failed to do that on Sunday about as badly as you can without pulling a Marcus Junius Brutus. Stafford is a right-handed passer, meaning he is vulnerable to pressure from the left side of the defense because his body is facing the opposite direction to throw. Left tackles get huge contracts to keep people such as Peppers, who is being paid nearly $85 million the Bears to turn quarterbacks into bloody piles of bone splinters and hamburger, away from quarterbacks' vulnerable backsides.

A first-round draft pick out of the University of Michigan in 2001, Backus has started all 144 games in which he has played. In July 2006, he signed a new contract reportedly worth nearly $40 million and includes about $16 million in bonuses. And he's been appropriately remorseful and contrite about his gross failure to do his job Sunday. But as far as ticket- and merchandise-buying fans are concerned, it might as well have been Jim Backus of Mr. Magoo fame out there playing left tackle.

Expect the Lions to pursue a replacement in free agency or via the draft in 2011.

As a former gimp-kneed, third-string right-handed quarterback (I'm still right handed and gimpy, but no longer an arena football quarterback), I can sympathize with Stafford. You need absolute confidence that your blindside is going to be protected. If there's some worry that it's not, that will eat away at a quarterback and affect his performance. It's a terrible distraction.

In other NFL news, word today is that the player's union is seeking decertification, a tactic that could prevent a lockout by team owners when the league's labor deal expired in March. The New York Times explains it here.