49ers' Joe Staley, Anthony Davis Think Lions' Defensive Line Is Overrated

Given all that has happened on and off the field between the Detroit Lions and San Francisco 49ers in the last year, this matchup has all the makings of a future rivalry. If these two teams ever meet in the playoffs, that could be all that is necessary to turn this into a full-blown rivalry. The Lions do need to be more competitive for that to happen, but the bad blood is certainly already there.

After Sunday's game, there weren't any handshake issues or dustups on Twitter, but the 49ers did have a couple players blast the Lions when talking to the media on Sunday night. Specifically, 49ers offensive linemen Joe Staley and Anthony Davis had some harsh words for the Lions' defensive linemen following Sunday's game. Staley criticized them quite a bit, as reported by CSN Bay Area. Staley said the Lions "didn't want any part of us up front," and that was only the beginning. Here's more of what Staley had to say:

"Look at the game. We killed them. Every single pressure they got was cheap. It was on a keep or something like that. They weren't beating us one on one. We ran for about 200 yards (148 yards) on the so-called best D-line in all of football."

Staley went on to call the Lions' defensive line "extremely" overrated, and he added that he's "never been impressed" by Detroit's D-line. Also, Staley said the Lions' defensive linemen pride themselves "on being cheap after the play," which is something Davis mentioned as well.

Said Davis, "It's not really an I'm-going-to-line-up-and-kick-your-(butt) kind of D-line. But people always say stuff like that. They're good at post-play stuff. They're good at getting away with nudging you at the end of a play, stuff like that."

Davis is the one who got into it on Twitter with Cliff Avril last year. The two players took out their frustrations on each other on the field on Sunday night and nearly got into a few post-whistle skirmishes during the game. I'm guessing that is a big source of the comments by Davis, who also brushed off the notion that a rivalry is developing between these two teams.

When asked if there's a rivalry building between the 49ers and Lions, Davis dismissed that talk because it has been a one-sided series.

"No," he said. "We've won both times."

Ouch.

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