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Below is a look at what Detroit Lions head coach Jim Schwartz had to say after Monday's loss to the Baltimore Ravens. (Quotes provided by the Lions.)
On QB Matthew Stafford's three interceptions: "Some of it's decision making. The one throwing the ball to the middle, it was a traffic jam in there. Other ones, you've just got to keep on throwing. You're a quarterback, you can't worry about throwing interceptions on some of them. The last touchdown pass to Joe Fauria, the guy's sort of underneath of him and those are the plays we can make also. That certainly affected us the last couple games and also affected us in this game. There were a couple scoring opportunities that we weren't able to take advantage of because of turnovers."
On if RB Reggie Bush was limited with the calf injury: "I don't think so. I thought he was moving pretty good. He was playing tough, he was playing physical and I thought he was making a difference in the game."
On if there were stretches where Bush was out of the game: "One time he came out, his shoe came off and it took a while to get that thing back on. But I think that was the only time. We were shuttling him and Joique sort of the same way that we normally do. I don't think there was any other time that he came out. There were a couple shaken up and got right back in."
On his emotions now with needing help to win the division: "Our emotions aren't important right now. We have two games to play, we're one down in our division. So I think that's the most important thing for us to keep in mind at this point. This was a setback, no question, because like you said, we did control our destiny until tonight. Now we've got to get some help from somebody. Chicago and Green Bay play each other the last game of the season, so one of those teams is going to get a loss. We've got two to play. We go and get two wins, we'll let everybody else sort it out. But we've got to be resilient enough to bounce back from it. This was a tough loss for us, it was a tough football team that we played, we didn't play well enough to win, they did. That field goal kicker made six field goals including a 60-plus yarder at the end. We just need to move on from it and go get two wins."
On turnovers being a big problem the second half of the season: "I think there's a lot of different things that go along with it. I think part of it is you can trace some of it to inefficiency on early downs. We had some times in there where we put ourselves behind the chains on first down. When we play well, we're moving on first and second down where we get a lot of first downs without getting to third down. We got to a lot of third downs and kept having to drive the football and when you do that, there's going to be things that come up. We've had some balls get tipped. I don't think any of them in this game. Well, the one was a ricochet off a guy that ended up making a play. Bottom line is, turnovers have hurt us and the other side of that is we weren't able to get any on defense. We had a big play where we knocked the ball out, got a sack and knocked that ball out and went right to their guy - their guy was able to fall on it. That could have been a difference-maker there also. We fall on that ball, we're already in field goal range. There's going to be times, you're not going to play a whole season without turning the ball over, but you've got to balance it with being able to get defensive takeaways and when we've played well this year, we've gotten defensive takeaways. We kept them out of the end zone today, but they ended up scoring 18 points because they got too many shots down in there and we didn't turn any of those shots away with turnovers."
On what gives him confidence this team can win after losing four of five and not showing that resilience recently: "The Ravens finished last year losing four of five. There's plenty of examples to be able to look to throughout the week. I like the character of our team. I like the toughness of our team and I like our quarterback. Our quarterback will bounce back. He's going to play great over these next two games."
On if Stafford looked ‘off' today: "I don't know if he looked ‘off.' He didn't play his best. There were a couple times I thought that he could make some better throws in there, but that's probably any quarterback in the League you can say that about."
On the decision to conserve the timeouts at the end: "We were sitting there waiting for it and if they went for it on fourth down, the last thing you want to do is give them more time in that situation, but even with 38 seconds with all three timeouts and knowing you need the field goal, you've got a chance to get five plays in there - maybe even six plays - get out of bounds, bang timeouts, stuff like that. With the ball on the 20-yard line, I thought we still had a chance right there. That was consideration. At first they put their offense out, it looked like they were going to go for it, and then they reconsidered and went to the field goal right there. But at that point, I don't know if it would have made a difference. We were thinking about that at the end of the game."
On what he was thinking as final the field goal went up: "Yeah, when he first - I mean, the guy's a great field goal kicker, obviously, and he had made a longer one early and our rush had been good today. I thought our rush had come close a couple times. When he hit it, I didn't think he hit it. I thought he blocked it out to the right a little bit, but it ended up going through and then you just move on. You get the kickoff team ready. We were going to bring it out as long as it was in the end zone, try to conserve time there and try to make a couple plays on offense. We've done that this year, we didn't do that today."
On if Stafford and WR Calvin Johnson had ‘jitters' tonight: "I don't know Calvin Johnson or Stafford to be jittery. I mean, it falls into, they're human beings. As much as we say, ‘Megatron' and things like that, there's still a human element to this game and you're not going to catch every single one. Every single pass isn't going to be perfect. We didn't play perfect in any phase of the game, no team ever does. But we didn't make enough plays to win and they did."
On the cornerback play: "I thought Jonte (Green) stepped up and did some good things. Early in the game, we gave up a couple chunks in there and had a couple penalties, but we found a way to get them stopped on the drive, held them to field goals. Generally, that's a pretty good formula. It wasn't today when they kept on making field goals, including a couple longer ones. Like I said, the only thing you really judge yourself on, is a win or a loss and we didn't play well enough to win today and that would include the corners."
