Author: Paula Pasche

ALLEN PARK — If Matt Prater ever offers you salt water taffy just say no.

The Lions placekicker owns a contraption that when opened for “taffy” a rubber mouse appears instead.

He gets the biggest kick out of it. (See what I did there.)

When Jim Caldwell was asked about Prater’s professionalism and his personality, he chortled. Not a usual reaction from the somewhat staid coach.

(Photo courtesy of Detroit Lions)

He was thinking practical jokes. When it gets down to the business of kicking the 32-year-old Prater is serious.

“First of all, the first thing you notice is that he is very disciplined, very dedicated to his craft. Extremely, extremely critical of his performance in terms of practice. I mean it means a lot to him. You’d think sometimes in practice that he’s kicking in the Super Bowl to win the game,’’ Caldwell said. “I mean that’s how he approaches things. But he is a true professional. Constant expert at what he does. He spends time at it. He thinks about it. He lives it. He breathes it. And you sometimes would think a guy like that would be fairly narrowed focused that there was not much time for a little levity in his life but he’s got a pretty good sense of humor.’’

For all the fun he brings, Prater is one of the best kickers in the NFL. On Wednesday he was named the NFC special teams player of the month.

Prater sets team and NFL kicking records nearly every week.

The two 55-plus field goal he kicked in the loss to the Falcons on Sunday were his third and fourth of the season from that distance. It makes him the first kicker in NFL history to make four 55-plus yard field goals in a season. And, of course, he did it in just three games.

Prater also now holds the four longest field goals in Lions history (57, 58, 58. 59).

The Lions play at the Vikings on Sunday where Prater nailed a 58-yard field goal with 23 seconds left to send the game to overtime last year. The Lions won on a 28-yard touchdown pass from Matthew Stafford to Golden Tate. If not for Prater they wouldn’t have had a chance to win. It was his third field goal that Sunday and his second of more than 50 yards in that game.

“He’s doing a heck of a job. I mean he’s great. On offense, we’re trying to score touchdowns. We want to make his job easy and kick extra points. We haven’t done a good enough job of that lately whether it’s getting into that red zone and finishing or converting on some of those third downs when we’re in the red zone,’’ Stafford said on Wednesday. “So, hopefully we’ll make his job easier and he’s kicking a bunch of one-pointers but man, he’s been great kicking the three-pointers for us too.”

Stafford said he doesn’t necessarily watch ever Prater field goal attempt.

“Lots of times, especially at home when it’s kind of quiet, I just listen and you can hear it when it hits his foot. Either hits it good or he doesn’t, and majority of the time he hits it good, and he’s been doing a heck of a job,’’ Stafford said. “That whole operation has been great. He’s done a great job. I mean he’s had a couple different guys holding for him this year already, and those guys have stepped in and done a great job getting it down. He’s been kicking it great.”

Prater has been a perfect six-of-six on field goals and also seven-of -seven on point-after attempts in three games. He’s scored 25 of the team’s 85 points in the first three games.

“It’s huge and I realized how huge it is during my first year here (2014) when we were going through kickers pretty quickly until we found Prater,’’ Tate said.

In 2014 Lions kicker Nate Freese made just three of seven field goals in the first three games to earn a ticket out of town. Then the Lions brought in Alex Henery who missed three field goals in week 5 in a 17-14 loss to the Bills.

That’s when the Lions signed Prater who had been let go by the Broncos after serving a four-game suspension.

“He’s big time. This guy there’s no such thing as a moment being too big for him. He’s showing up week in and week out just handling business,’’ Tate said. “It’s a good feeling once you get to the 50, 40 or 30 you know chances are he can hit those.’’

After the Lions spent so much money on the offensive line in the offseason, it is starting to come apart, at least temporarily, due to injury.

The Lions made two moves Tuesday. They signed veteran guard Tim Lelito and placed guard/center Joe Dahl (in photo) on injured reserve with a lower leg injury.

Lelito comes to Detroit after most recently spending the 2017 preseason with the Tennessee Titans. He was released on Sept. 4. Prior to Tennessee, he played four seasons (2013-16) with the New Orleans Saints, where he started in 24 games.

Currently in his fifth season, Lelito has appeared in 63 career games (24 starts). He entered the NFL in 2013 with the Saints as an undrafted rookie free agent out of Grand Valley State.

Center Travis Swanson (ankle) didn’t practice all last week and was inactive in the loss to the Falcons on Sunday. He was replaced by Graham Glasgow who shifted from left guard. Zac Kerin, who was acquired off waivers on Sept. 4, started at left guard.

Dahl is a valuable asset because he can back up at center and guard. When Taylor Decker tore his labrum in June, the Lions tried out Dahl at tackle during a few practices.

Decker was placed on the reserve/PUP list which means he will miss at least three more games. Greg Robinson has been playing left tackle in his place.

The Lions (2-1) are preparing to play at the Minnesota Vikings (2-1) on Sunday in a key NFC North matchup. The Vikings have five sacks in their first three games.

ALLEN PARK — Jim Caldwell is moving on from the ending of Sunday’s loss to the Atlanta Falcons.

Now the Detroit Lions coach has to get the team on the same page with him.

It should not be difficult. Caldwell is consistent in his approach with the team. He’s even-keeled throughout the season and he doesn’t want players getting too excited or too down.

“I don’t want to be cynical in that sense but I can tell you that this is a fairly new group. Our nucleus is the same. Every year is different like we always talk about. I can only tell you that you have setbacks during the course of games. You have adversity. We’ve been able overcome those. So, we’ll see how we bounce back,’’ Caldwell said on Monday. “The idea is to get it behind us as quickly as we can, and a lot of that has to do with just guys making up their mind it’s over and done with. But the close ones make you think about it a little bit. We understand that part of it.’’

So on Monday the plan was to go over film of the game and make corrections which is a typical Monday.

Then on Wednesday the players will start preparing for the road game at the Minnesota Vikings (2-1) on Sunday.

We got to travel and play a very, very difficult team. Tough team that’s got some great challenges for us. So, that’s part of the challenge that we face every week after either you win or you lose. If you win and guys are still thinking about how well they played the day before or week before, that can get you,” Caldwell said. “And this is no different but this is kind of this part of this league that it’s all about. It’s how do you handle it? So, we try to preach it and talk about it, and I think our guys have always had pretty good, really good focus in that regard.”

Caldwell said it’s not just up to him to get the players in the right frame of mind. It’s the assistant coaches who work closely with the position groups and the team leaders too.

The Golden Tate touchdown with 8 seconds left was overturned and the clock run down to end the game.

Caldwell said the officials followed the rule.

“End of story. I mean I remember growing up, you guys always talked about a loser’s limp. To me, that’s the next thing to it. You start complaining about stuff, and it should’ve happened this way. Forget about that,’’ Caldwell said. “You’ve got to do something about it rather than talk about it. I don’t believe in excuses and all of those kinds of things. They don’t work, and they’re not good for us. We just need to go back to work.”