"Daunte Culpepper said he was surprised by how quickly the Lions made Matthew Stafford their starting quarterback, and he stopped short of saying the team treated him fairly last season.

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"Once they drafted him, I knew that they were going to put him on the field," Culpepper said of Stafford in a conference call Thursday. "But I didn't know they were going to put him on the field that early. But that was their decision, and my role had to change. And I accepted that and I moved on."

Culpepper, who will make his season debut Saturday for the Sacramento Mountain Lions in the upstart United Football League, did not always embrace his backup role in 2009. When Stafford was named the surprise starter on Thanksgiving, Culpepper sulked on the bench during warm-ups.

Culpepper refused to say whether he thought he was treated fairly.

"Well, the way I look at that situation is, I learned a lot," he said. "That's all I can say. I learned a lot and I moved on. I haven't really thought about it a whole lot, but it is what it is."

When Mountain Lions coach Dennis Green coached the Arizona Cardinals, he dissected film of quarterback Kurt Warner with the New York Giants before he signed him. Green did much the same with Culpepper's film with the Lions."