The Detroit Lions conclude a four-of-five game stretch on the road this Sunday as they take on the Minnesota Vikings with kickoff set for 1 p.m. at Mall of America Field. The Lions are coming off their second straight win with a 31-14 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 9, while the Vikings will look to avenge a 30-20 loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
LIONS HEAD COACH JIM SCHWARTZ:
On WR Calvin Johnson’s knee: “He’s no worse for wear. He toughed it out in the game and made a big contribution in the game obviously.”
On how concerned he is about Johnson: “Yeah, I mean I think that it’s life in the NFL. There’s going to be a lot of (that). I mean we’re in the middle of an NFL season, everybody’s going to be dealing with something like that. But the things that he’s had, eventually will be put to bed. The only thing is you can’t anticipate what else is coming up. I think every player is going to have to deal with injuries over the course of the season. Calvin’s no different than any of these other guys.”
On if Johnson was on a pitch count: “No. We tried to get him out on some, you know, if he ran deep on one play we sort of pulled him out on another. Most of that last drive he wasn’t in there. We were just running the ball just about every down and then also late in the game took him off the hands team just to try to limit. It was three scores but 50 seconds left or something like that there’s no sense of exposing him to another hit if at all preventable.”
On how much confidence does the offensive game give them: “We’ve done some good things. Our third downs have been very good the last couple games. Our red zone has been very good. I think we’re 4-4 in the red zone. Those are important things for us on offense when we’re scoring touchdowns, when we’re keeping drives alive on third down, when we’re making long drives. We did it last week. We did it the week before that. It hasn’t just been single plays. It hasn’t been big plays. We’ve sort of adjusted to the ways teams have played us. We’ve been able to keep drives alive.
On if he starts looking at standings and playoff picture at this point in the season: “We’re middle of the season when it comes to stuff like that. I mean, we need to go out and concentrate on this next game. That’s the only thing that we can control right now. I think when you get late in the season, the final quarter of the season, maybe you start paying attention a little bit more. But even then the most important thing is the way you play. You can’t control anything else. You know, if you play well, then that’s all you can do. Work hard and come out with a win. This is another game for us, a NFC game. You know, it’s a very, very important game for us. It starts the second half of the year.”
