LIONS HEAD COACH JIM SCHWARTZ PRESS CONFERENCE
Opening statement: “Hard fought game yesterday. We are now 5-1; getting ready for Atlanta. I think that it is unfortunate that the events after the game have overshadowed the fact that it was one of the better games played yesterday between two teams that are both right now 5-1 in the NFC and both young and improving teams.”
On his postgame reaction to 49ers Head Coach Jim Harbaugh: “Well, like I said, it was unfortunate. The games are played by the players on the field and we certainly don’t want things like that to occur, but there are competitive people in the League and I think we need to do a better job of just leaving it to the players on the field.”
On if he has had any contact with Harbaugh about the incident: “Well, I have had contact with a lot of people today, but afterwards in the tunnel, I got a brief chance to speak with (Harbaugh) sort of. Everything had died down a little bit. I am sure we will talk again or will talk again soon.”
On if he has had any contact with the NFL: “Yeah, I have talked to the League this morning. Just told them what had happened and that was the last I have thought about it to tell you the truth before this.”
On he had a strained relationship with 49ers Head Coach Jim Harbaugh before Sunday’s game: “It was fine. I was a lowly quality control coach (in Baltimore). I mean I was the quality control guy on defense and he was the quarterback. I haven’t exactly stayed in touch. When he coached with the Raiders, I talked to him. He was the quarterback coach and I think I was the defensive coordinator with the Titans. But, there is nothing and there is nothing now. There was nothing then and there is nothing now. It is something that happened at the end of the game and, like I said, it sort of took away from the fact that it was a tough, hard fought game and congratulations to them. They came on the road, very, very difficult place – our fans made it a difficult place to play again – and they came away with win. We have talked before about how important road wins are, particularly NFC road wins.”
On if he expects to hear about any discipline from the NFL: “Oh I don’t know. I just told my point of view and I think we will just leave it to everybody else.”
On what exactly got him so angry: “Yeah, I mean I have shaken hands, I don’t know, 40-50 times over the last two and half years or so and never had anything come up. Obviously something did, but I think I hit that yesterday. I will just revert back to what I said yesterday and just leave it there. I think it is what it is. It happened. It was very regrettable and it is something that there is nothing going forward between us personally or the two teams. Like I said, it was a tough, hard fought game in Ford Field. We need to play better and come out with a win the next time.”
On Stafford’s performance: “Yeah it’s not one of Matt’s better games for sure. (It was) a combination of a lot of things. We’ve got to do a better job of getting open for him. We’ve got to do a better job of protection, but yeah, there are some things that we need to clean up. You know, just the tempo of getting rid of the ball and you know, being able to step up. There were times in that game that he had to bail away and you know, make throws—and those happen in every single game and that means you can’t make plays. There were a lot of plays to be made, but there were also times that he didn’t really need to (bail out), that we needed to step up to the pocket and make some throws. But yeah, it wasn’t one of his better games.”
On RB Jahvid Best’s heath: “Yeah, we’ll see where he is. After the game he started experiencing some concussion-like symptoms. You know, we started getting him tested out and everything else. We never lost his availability during the game, even though we were using a little different package, trying to get more protection and had Maurice Morris in there to try to, you know, help chip and do things like that and trying, I don’t want to say de-emphasize, but (it) wasn’t as important running the route as it was either running the ball or doing those things. But he was in the game and everything else, and when the game was over, pretty long after the game was over, we started getting some of those.
“That’s not unusual—that’s happened a bunch of times. We’ve had some of those that they’re not even on the radar until 10 o’clock the next morning and we’ll have them show up on the injury report and show up here and say ‘hey, I didn’t sleep at all last night’ or ‘I’m feeling nauseous this morning’ or ‘the light was driving me crazy when I came into work’—and they’re all signs of concussions symptoms.
“You know, similar situation with Jahvid. He has a protocol to go through and we’ll see where he is with it.”
On RB Maurice Morris being the primary back on the last two offensive possessions as opposed to Best: “Jahvid? Yeah, I mean, he had been effective in the pass game, but Mo’s also been effective in the pass game. I think that we were working a lot of different combinations and things like that. It really had nothing to do with anything other than that. We’re sitting there saying, ‘Hey, look we can get Matt some more time, going a lot to Calvin down the field, and things like that, trying to push some of those balls down the field. They were playing a little bit different coverage rather than two-man they were playing a three cloud. You know, all game decisions.”
On how cautious he has to be with Best given that this is his second concussion in less than three months: “I don’t know if it makes us more cautious, but there is a protocol to go through. We’re going to make sure that we clear all those hurdles before he’s cleared to be back on the field. There is a whole protocol that we follow in those situations, but there is a little bit of a concern with the second one, but it doesn’t change the process when it comes to him being cleared. He’ll be cleared when his symptoms diminish and he gets cleared for physical activity and then get cleared for practice and then get cleared for contact.”
On if after watching film he thinks that the offense should have thrown to WR Calvin Johnson a little more in the redzone: “We tried the one down the sideline. Matthew (Stafford) didn’t get the ball in bounds. I thought we had a good opportunity on that one, but there were a lot of other ones where there was probably a better place to go with the ball and we’ve seen that before and other guys need to make plays. We got a touchdown to (Brandon) Pettigrew and we got a touchdown to Nate Burleson. We also had no turnovers in the game. That was one of our things going in to that game was that we needed to win the turnover battle. I think that’s the reason that we’re able to say, ‘we played poorly, but we were also one play away from winning that game,’ is the fact that we did get two turnovers and we didn’t turn the ball over. Even though we didn’t play our best, we were still in it to the very end, mainly because of that. Maybe, if we try to force that in, maybe we get a turnover and all of a sudden we don’t get one of those scores and that change. We want to get the ball to Calvin; we were moving him around a lot. A couple of those passes where he was getting glances inside of a corner, he’s playing a position that he normally doesn’t play. Scott (Linehan) was moving him around a lot to try and get him open. We said before, we all need to do a better job. We all need to do a better job of getting open and winning one-on-ones when teams take that approach with Calvin.”
On if the Lions will be a little more aggressive to make a trade before the deadline with the injury to RB Jahvid Best: “I think we’ve always taken the approach and I think Martin (Mayhew) has done a great job and one of his signature sayings is, ‘The draft isn’t the finish line,’ and the beginning of training camp isn’t the finish line and so the trading deadline isn’t the finish line. There are waivers, there are free agents and things like that. I think I’ll just answer that saying that, any chance that we have to improve the team, we’ve proven that we’re willing to do.”
