BEARS HEAD COACH JOHN FOX Opening statement: Update on injuries from the game; Jeremiah Ratliff left the game and did not return with a neck injury. Jarvis Jenkins did leave the game, but did return, he passed the concussion protocol. On what the difference in the game was: I think we played a good team on the road and we had to overcome a lot of different things and we just came up a little short. On how the touchdown pass caught by Lions WR Golden Tate was explained to him: That he was upright, so they deemed that he had possession, was the exact explanation. On a similar situation on a pass caught by WR Eddie Royal: We re not allowed to talk about officials. You know it, I know it, so why ask? On if the Lions took away WR Alshon Jeffery in overtime: That would probably be something you d have to ask them. I think we scored 34 points. In this league, that s usually enough, today it wasn t. On if the NFL should clarify the ruling on what a catch is: I have no control over that. We can dwell on that, but in this league you have to overcome everything every week. On who determines if the offense will run or pass late in the game: Ultimately, it s all my call just so we re clear on that. I think every play, you either call a run or a pass, kind of like heads or tails. If it goes the other way, it doesn t work, you wish you would ve called the other one. On if he wanted to run out the clock near the end of the game: It worked out that we have enough time to go down and tie the game, so it really doesn t matter. On if he should ve used his timeouts: I look at it the other way. We went like 70 yards in a short amount of time to tie the game. On his team continuing to battle: I thought the last drive that we were making reference to, I thought Jay (Cutler) did a good job, our offensive coaches and the play calling did a good job and we went a pretty good distance in a short amount of time and it gave us an opportunity to try and win the game in overtime.
On if they could have declined the 10-second runoff at the end of the game: Yeah, we could. That s always an option. On why he didn t decline the 10-second runoff: I think it was 10 seconds that they backed it up and, I guess in hindsight, which we all get to do, we wish we probably would ve had 10 more seconds. On the roughing the passer call on LB Pernell McPhee: I didn t really see it, to be honest with you. I heard it was a conversation about picking it up, but they didn t. On Jeffery s presence on offense: Anytime you get starters back in your lineup, I think it s helpful. I think both Eddie Royal and Alshon Jeffery did spark our offensive team and it will be good to get them back in there consistently. On how the Lions defensive fronts affected the run game: I haven t really looked at the stats yet. I know we still try to establish the run throughout games sometimes just to keep a defense honest and, like I said, offensively, with 34 points, I think it was three points short, but it s not a bad outing. BEARS QB JAY CUTLER On the decision to run the ball in the final two-and-a-half minutes of the game: I think it s pretty standard. You want to get them to burn all their timeouts. We felt good about the runs, we had a really good first-down run and a third-and-manageable. We were successful running the ball in that situation, so make them burn all the timeouts, make them go the length of the field. On what opened up on the three plays in their last scoring drive of regulation: They kind of manned up Al (Alshon Jeffery) a little bit and it was good to see him out there today. I thought he played his tail off and make some big-time catches for us, so anytime he s getting some one-on-ones, we re going to head his way. On how hard of a loss this is to take for a team: It s tough, it s tough. We battled, I can only speak for the offense and myself, we ve got to do better in the red zone, we ve got to do better down there. We ve got to be more efficient, got to get touchdowns instead of three. I ve got to play better down there. I thought the defense did a good job of keeping us in the game early.
On the interception in the end zone intended for WR Alshon Jeffery: Yeah, you know, we had to get it up. Al said he lost some (in the) light, I ve still got to put it out there a little bit farther for him and let him make a play. On what challenges the Lions run defense presented: We were still effective. I think we went up and down the field pretty well against them, we ve just got to be better in the red zone. BEARS WR ALSHON JEFFERY On how it felt to get back on the field: It felt great to be back out there with my teammates. On Cutler s interception intended for him: Yeah, that was my fault. It had nothing to do with his throw. I just couldn t see it, it was in the lights. On if he got off the line the way he wanted to: It doesn t matter about the time, it s about the ball. Once the ball is in the air, I have to make a play and I couldn t see it. He could see it. On if this is a sign of what the Bears offense can be: The sky is the limit. We just have to get healthy and just capitalize on it more when we get in the red zone. That s about it. BEARS T/G KYLE LONG On how difficult of a loss this is: Very difficult, especially because I think that we have a better team and I think we shot ourselves in the foot numerous times throughout the course of the game and that s the nature of the game of football. You can t shoot yourselves in the foot and expect to win. On the game plan going in: We wanted to score points and we wanted to stop the defense. On the lack of the run game in overtime: We ll take a look at the film and we ll see what happened and I m sure it ll give us the answer. On if they made changes at halftime: Not really.
BEARS RB MATT FORTE On if today s game is a missed opportunity: Yeah, a bunch of missed opportunities. The game was basically given to us and we had a lot of opportunities to win that game. I don t even want to go over the first half, then the second half, even in overtime, we couldn t get a first down. When we got an opportunity to go down, the defense stopped them and the first team to score wins, we ve got to move the ball. We ve got to at least get the ball past the 50. On if the offense works better in up-tempo: I don t know, man. I mean, the offense works when we execute. Whether it s two-minute or regular offense, if you don t execute it s not going to work. We had some breakdowns in a lot of areas across the board, so it s just frustrating and I m pissed off about it, but I don t even want to go to the bye week. I just want to focus on the next team, truly. On what WR Alshon Jeffery brings to the offense: If you watch the game, just down the field, stretching the ball down the field, that down-the-field threat, we ve been dinking and dunking a little bit when he wasn t in there. (Marquess Wilson) was able to stretch the field a little bit, too. But Alshon being in there, he was able to catch the ball down the field a lot and open up some of the other guys, too, in the passing game. So they couldn t just double him and the passing game go away. BEARS LB CHRISTIAN JONES On the defense s play today: I think it went smooth. We ve just got to finish plays. I thought we gave up some big plays, but for the most part I think it went smooth. On the high number of big plays in the game: I mean, they have a good team. Their record doesn t say so right now, but they ve got guys that can make plays and they definitely made good plays tonight. We ve just got to do a better job of containing them and finishing. On LBs LaRoy Reynolds and Jonathan Anderson s play: They re two smart players and they pick up things fast. I thought they played pretty well for the most part. It wasn t perfect but they played their asses off and they re flying around and they made some plays tonight. BEARS S HAROLD JONES-QUARTEY On what was running through his mind when the ball was in the air against WR Calvin Johnson: I was just thinking, If my number is called, I have to make that play.
On how much different the Lions offense was compared to previous opponents: Not much. I mean, they did exactly what we thought they would, but they made plays and we didn t. On if the Lions executed better than the Bears: Probably. We can get a little better, but that s how it goes sometimes. BEARS LB PERNELL MCPHEE On how many chances the defense had to put the game away: We had a lot of chances. We didn t finish it, but we ve just got to come back to work and tighten up the screws. We started off slow today and I think this is our worst performance all year. But they get paid to play offense and they did a nice job of scheming and they came out playing harder than we did. On how frustrating it is when controversial penalties are called that can potentially impact the game: Yeah, I just can t leave that in the referee s hands. I ve got to finish that play. I ve got to make my move faster and finish that play. On moving on from today s loss: Me personally, I m about to go in the zone. Like I said, I m on a mission, man, to dominate no matter what and we ve just got to take this time, this break to get ourselves healthy, offense, defense and we ve got to come ready to go to work and get ready for Minnesota. LIONS HEAD COACH JIM CALDWELL Opening statement: Well, a tough, hard-fought win. I think our guys really came together and played tough and played well. We came out I really think it would ve been a bit of a different ball game if our defense hadn t stepped up the way that they did and made them kick field goals three times they were down in the red zone. It was two or three times, which made a tremendous difference in terms of the outcome. Then they came back again, it was tough to stop (Jay) Cutler. He did a nice job moving around, making plays and he was rather elusive. We couldn t get our hands on him enough times and he kept putting that ball down the field and getting in scoring range a number of ways. So for our defense to come back, and then particularly at the end of the game when we had to get a stop with two minutes and some odd left, we had to get a stop there and they did a nice job. We could use our timeouts, get the ball back and give our guys enough time to go down the field and score. So a lot of good things, special teams, even though, when you look at it, we still had some miscues in all phases, but I think overall they played well enough and hard enough together to come through and win that game, which was good. Typically, with a team that s gone through some of the adversity we ve gone through, the tough thing is to battle back when things don t go your way. I think the guys came together as a unit, as a group, as a team and did that a number of times. So it s a good one to get and now we ve got to get on to the next one.
On Offensive Coordinator Joe Lombardi moving up to the press box for the game: You know, we gave him a little change of venue. It s actually one of those things, Joe had really wanted to go up there previously and it just happened that it made sense this particular time and just to change his vantage point. On why Lombardi s move made sense at this time: Because it did. I m not going to go into any detailed reasons, but it made sense to us at this time. On if he saw a benefit from having Lombardi in the press box: I mean, Joe would have to tell you that in terms of We played well before. It s not the first time. It s the first time this year, but he was down on the field all those times we had a lot of big games. But nevertheless, it happened and it s not like it s a monumental feat. That wasn t the key to it. The key was what happened on that field. Our guys played well, played hard and they executed better. That was the key. If it was that easy to do that, we certainly wouldn t be in the situation we re in if it was that simple. On what the win today can do for the team s future: I m not sure what kind of fragile things you re talking about, but in terms of these guys hanging together, supporting each other, fighting for one another, I don t think they ever waned in that regard. The record, yes, but the fact of the matter is it s still early, but that s one game and we ll see what happens. We ve got to get ready to go to the next one. On the reasoning behind kicking a field goal when down seven late in the game: We had timeouts left, we had a chance to get it back and it played out exactly like it played out. That was what we had planned. Because you could ve gone for it, but if you don t make it in that situation, obviously, we look at those things, we calculate them, we anticipate them, we don t just talk about them when they come up. We had talked about that minutes before, so we were kind of anticipating what we d do. The fake punt helped us, which was key, and the guys did a nice job executing that. We had been working on that one for a little bit. On if the win today takes any pressure off of him: Same as always. It s no different than the first day I started coaching in 1979 and 78. Same, no difference. Nothing unusual, nothing special. On what he saw when calling the fake punt: Strategically, we saw a couple things that we thought we could take advantage of and it worked. On any concerns giving RB Ameer Abdullah the ball after his fumble today: He carried it out there several times after that, so that kind of answered the question.
On taking Abdullah out of the game then bringing him back: We didn t bench him for a period, he was hurt. He got a little stinger and couldn t go back in. On wanting to throw more deep balls: Every week is different. Every week is different depending on what they give you, how they play you, those kinds of things. On why WR Golden Tate was returning punts: A little change of pace and we thought he d give them a little bit different kind of look than ones that they d seen in portions of the game. On why the team didn t announce starting lineups before the game: Felt coming out as a team is what we had to be in order for us to make any strides. We have to come together and play well, so I think the guys believed in it and that s the way we wanted to get it done. On the special teams miscues: We had a number of miscues in a number of different areas. We ll kind of clean those up where we can, but we re not happy about anything that we did, any turnovers. I think we were minus-two turnovers, so we have to get that straightened away. On WR Corey Fuller s duties on punt return: You re only talking about a few plays that you think he s inconsistent because of something that maybe showed up, two penalties of some sort, but the fact of the matter is, he does his job. On if getting the ball to WR Calvin Johnson early helps the team: There s a number of guys, and Calvin, obviously, he comes up big in games like this and six catches for over 150 yards or whatever it was, does a great job for us. But I think he s a playmaker. There s a number of guys that made big plays for us, that got some things going, so I think every guy that we have that can catch the ball or carry the ball is capable, but he s a special guy. On updates to RB Zach Zenner s chest injury: No, not yet. On if Stafford looked reinvigorated today: I think we ve all seen him play well before. He played well. On if QB Matthew Stafford s removal from last week's game fueled his performance today: Last week was last week. I don t think you look at anything based upon that. You guys probably don t get a real good feel, those things get behind us rather quickly. We have practices to kind of get us through those things. We re focusing on our
next team and we move on and we re not carrying anything, win or loss, from the week before. So, I just think our guys practiced well, hard and then took it to the field for the most part, which is what we hadn t been doing. On WR Lance Moore s performance: He played well. Five catches for over 100 yards and some big plays along the way. With 50-50 balls, he went up and got them and he s not the biggest guy, but he s jumpy, competitive and he runs routes well. He found some nice holes in seams and made some nice runs after the catch as well, so he did a nice job for us. On Tate s touchdown catch and the officials ruling: He possessed the ball, right? You probably heard him explain it and how it went, so plain and simple. On the receivers making big catches during the game: They all were big. There were some big catches in tough situations. Corey (Fuller) had a big one for a first down, which was key. There were seven or eight different receivers that caught the ball for us and I think the great majority of them were pretty memorable. So, I think it was a night of big plays, which really made a difference because they also had a number on their side that were key and where they gave our guys some problems, particularly with (Jay) Cutler scrambling around a bit, getting the ball downfield, so he created some problems for us. LIONS QB MATTHEW STAFFORD On the 57-yard pass to WR Calvin Johnson and their ability to read one another: Yeah, we ve played together long enough. He s knows if that ball s not out on a naked like, on a bootleg pretty soon and it s him and the safety, I think he sees the body language and understands he s going to have a chance for it. Obviously, we up and made a great play. Guys up front did a heck of a job today giving me time to make some plays down the field and guys for the most part made them and that s what we ve got to have. On the key to getting the deep passing game started: I think our guys up front did a heck of a job. They did a great job against some heavy-handed pass rushers, some guys really trying to push the pocket. Our guys did a good job of giving me enough time and our guys downfield made some plays, some catch-and-runs, some big plays of that nature. We had a big one to Theo (Riddick), I threw it four yards and he made a bunch of dudes miss and made a big play. So, it doesn t always have to be a 50-yards-in-the-air-kind-of-ball, rarely is it. It s more so guys making plays and those guys are big-time play makers and we got them the ball today. On what he saw on the deep pass to Johnson and when he realized he had a chance: Kind of late. He s really not - He s alerted in the progressions, maybe. We re trying to get a sideline route, front side and over coming behind him, possibly trying to get the tight end out into the flat. He got hit by the defensive end, so he didn t get out and he s my No. 1. Just kind of bought some time and saw the look from him just kind of peaking back and it was him and a safety and I feel pretty good about that and that point in the game we needed a chunk. We needed a play and he went up and made a great one. On the takeaways from this game moving forward: We can take the positives just like we did from the losses, but we ve got to shore up some of the stuff that we didn t do well. That little play to Theo, I ve got to find a way to get that ball down or just
take the sack in that instance. Can t turn the ball over. We by no means played a perfect game. We put our defenses in tough spots on offense and special teams and they responded, made some big plays and held some tough-looking drives to field goals and that s big. So we ll go look at the film, we ll find ways to get better and just try and build on it. On if this is the Calvin Johnson he s used to seeing: It s the Calvin Johnson that I ve been seeing for my whole life. He s been the same guy. I m just happy for him to have a big game because all he wants to do is help us win. It s my job to get him the ball and I wasn t doing a good enough job of that probably in the first five games and tried to do a better job of that today and he made the plays. LIONS WR CALVIN JOHNSON On what it feels like to get the team s first win: It feels great, especially coming against a divisional rival. You know, big game for us here. It puts us We re still in decent shape in our division. So, overall, I mean, just to get the W on the board, that s big. On the team s success with deep passes tonight: It s just something that we really put the emphasis on this week, you know, and I m glad we did. We were able to get that thing downfield a couple times, had a lot more big plays than we ve had in the past, so those big plays, they lead to touchdowns. We were able to put some up. On if he felt comfortable tonight with all the deep passes: Heck yeah, getting the win and making big plays. Yeah, no doubt about it. On if he saw a game like this coming for QB Matthew Stafford: Yeah, I mean, Stafford s been doing it his whole career. You know, especially when we ve seen situations where not only him, but we ve got our backs up against the wall and come out firing. That s all he did today, kept his composure all week and didn t worry about what happened in the past. Coach always tells us to move forward and he did a great job of that. On his 57-yard catch in overtime: I just saw Matt, you know, once I m running downfield he always tell me keep my eyes on him because he ll throw it up. I saw him do the crow hop, so I knew it was coming. I was just trying to keep the defender in a good place so I could make a play off of him. On the NFL s varying rules on what determines a catch in reference to WR Golden Tate s touchdown: Oh man, you know, I m just glad it was a catch. I m just glad it was a touchdown for us. That was a big play for us at the time. On how much the offense changed its mentality this week: You know, we still had all the same stuff in. We just made some good calls at the right time.
LIONS WR LANCE MOORE On the offense s performance tonight: They gave us opportunities, everybody made plays. I can t say it enough that Matt (Stafford) had a hell of a game, man. He stood in there, he took some shots, he delivered the ball and guys made plays for him. The offensive line protected their butts off. Everybody was making plays and that s how this offense can be a great one. On if the offense reached its potential tonight: Well, yeah, I think we had 500-plus yards. Hopefully, we can keep that going. Hopefully, we can eliminate some of those penalties, the one turnover, obviously, on offense that we had. It s fun, it s fun when you have a game like that and nobody ever said it had to be pretty. We won ugly, but we got our first win. On how much QB Matthew Stafford s play tonight means to the team: It s awesome, man. Just the way that he came out today. He broke down the huddle, he was the guy that was getting everyone fired up and everyone kind of rallied behind him. He s our guy. There s a reason why he s here, there s a reason why he s one of the top-paid guys in the business because he s one of the best, and he definitely played a heck of a game today. LIONS RB AMEER ABDULLAH On his emotions following the team s first win: Relieved, just relieved. On how he feels physically: I feel all right. Got a little banged up, but shoot, it s the black and blue division. On if Head Coach Jim Caldwell talked to him following his fumble: No, we just kept rolling. No, the game was going on. We just kept rolling. On the team s success in the run game tonight: It was good, but it needs to be a little bit better. You start off well, sputter at times, we just want to be consistent. On how much his injury played into his fumble: None. No, it was all on me. The guy came up to me quick, I ve got to be ready to adjust at any time. Shoot, it s just like the same story. I ve got to look in the mirror and I ve got to get this right. On his confidence level right now: It s growing, it s growing. But I ve got to take care of the little things first. You know, I want this team to trust me, I want the coaches to trust me, so I can t continue to put it on the ground. It s disappointing for me, but I realized today I ve got some great teammates, man. A lot of people picked me up, man. People making plays all over the place, playing with the greatest receiver ever, that doesn t hurt. So, I was
happy that the team really was rallying around me and they didn t let a couple turnovers, you know, special teams and stuff get you down. LIONS S GLOVER QUIN On if the offense tonight was what he knew it could be: Oh yeah, we always knew those guys had it and they brought it today. Got over 500 total yards and made big plays up and down the field. They showed up and we greatly appreciate that. It was fun to watch. We see it in practice all the time and we knew it was only a matter of time before they got going. On QB Matthew Stafford responding to criticism: Yes, sir. I love my quarterback. I stand behind him 100 percent. He fought through a lot, he didn t let it deter him. We told him we had his back, we were fighting for him and he played a heck of a game today. On what the win does for the team s psyche: We just know we just have to keep fighting. It s hard to win on Sundays and we just know we ve got to play together for four quarters as a group and we did that today. The offense made big plays, the defense got stops when we needed them. On special teams, we made big plays. Sam (Martin) punted the ball great in overtime, (Matt) Prater hit the game winner. It was a full team effort. On overcoming the mistakes that were made early in the game: I mean, football is a game of mistakes. It s not always going to be perfect. All the plays are designed to score a touchdown, but it doesn t work like that all the time. So it s about who can make the least amount of mistakes and when you make. LIONS LB STEPHEN TULLOCH On the ups and downs of the game: It was a lot. I think we came out pretty fast in the beginning of the game and Chicago capitalized on some of our mishaps and made the game longer than it should ve been, but I think our defense was able to hold pretty good. Our offense, obviously, came through at the end and we were able to find a way to win. On the team stepping up in overtime: In overtime, we came together as a team. Offense, defense, special teams, defense had some good holds, offense went down there, great catch by Calvin (Johnson) and were able to put us in position to make the game-winning field goal. But like I said, it feels good to have a win, finally, under our belt and hopefully we can capitalize and keep moving on from there. On if this win can save the season: It was definitely a must-win situation. I ve been in this situation. Coach put it up on the board, 2006 and 2009, so I know what it is to be 0-5 and come out of it. So, obviously, we won a game now and we can capitalize on it. We have another division game next week with Minnesota, so we need to get up on them and get ready to play them.
LIONS K MATT PRATER On his ninth career game-winning kick: The offense did a good job of putting it down there to get me a shot at it, just for a chip shot. They did the hard part moving the ball down the field and give all the credit to those guys and I just did what I m supposed to do. On what went through his mind when WR Calvin Johnson caught the pass to put them in field goal range: Game s over. I felt pretty confident that I m going to make a 24-yard kick, so I felt good about it and I was excited about the opportunity that they gave me. On what it does for the team to get its first win: It just shows the grit and everything that this team has. With the ups and downs and the adversity we went through during the game, to come out with a win really feels good.