Detroit Lions: Jim Caldwell, Players Talk About Win Over Eagles
By Zac Snyder
The Detroit Lions’ win over the Philadelphia Eagles had Jim Caldwell and his players in more of a talking mood than the last three weeks.
Here is a look at what Jim Caldwell and select players had to say after today’s win, starting with Caldwell.
On the mood on the sideline after forcing the fumble in the fourth quarter: “The guys played so hard there down the stretch, and we needed a couple plays. That turnover was huge for us. (Darius) Slay got a part of that thing and the guys scrambling to get it recovered because it was bouncing around. Thought initially that it was going to trickle out of bounds, but the guys did a very nice job, and then Slay’s play at the end. Overall, it was just a heck of a team effort. I think our guys started the game well. Ran into a little bit of a lull in the third quarter. They were playing well, that’s a good football team. We were able to pull it out at the end.”
On his view of QB Matthew Stafford’s fourth quarter pass to WR Golden Tate: “It was, perhaps, one of the better anticipatory passes that you’ll see. He (Stafford) laid that thing out there in front of him (Tate) and Golden was able to run right through the catch point and did a very, very nice job. It took a little bit of anticipation, but those two have gotten to know each other pretty well. Those kinds of things, it’s great to see them happen certainly in a ball game.”
On his display of emotion on the fumble recovery: “It’s no different than I always have. Oftentimes, I know people want to make it as if that’s different. That’s me every day. Something good happens, I’m usually pretty excited about it, that one just so happened to happen right in front of me. But the guys did a nice job, it’s about them not about me.”
On the adjustments Philadelphia made for the second half: “They just played better than we played. Everybody talks about adjustments and oftentimes nothing changes in terms of what you do schematically. It’s just guys are making tackles and maybe we’re missing tackles, or we’re blocking people or we turn a couple guys loose. We had a couple penalties, so it’s a little bit of both. They really, I mean, it’s not a team that’s going to just flat lay down on you. These teams are all too close from a talent standpoint, to ever think that some team is going to run away and win by three, four touchdowns.”
On his thought process in terms of play calling in the fourth quarter: “We want to make they use their timeouts, number one. We wanted to see if we could run it in, but if we had an opportunity to throw it, which we did at the end, we certainly wanted to make certain that we didn’t turn that thing over at that time. You’ve got to make them use their timeouts if you can, and you want to try to eat as much time off the clock as you possibly can. Also, you want to score, you want to try to score touchdowns as opposed to just settling, kneel, kneel, kneel, or just run, run, run and kick a field goal. We wanted to give it a try, we just couldn’t quite get it done.”
On the performance of CB Darius Slay: “I believe he played extremely well. He’s one of those guys that has an inordinate skill level, he can run with you, he can make plays. It was good to see him get his first interception, essentially, on a heck of a play down the field where he tracked the ball, he screened it well. He played well I think all day long. There may be a couple, I think he missed a tackle on the far side, maybe a couple here and there. Overall, it was a heck of a ball game for him.”
On if he received an explanation for the ineligible receiver downfield penalty that was recalled: “Yes, the ineligible receiver that they called downfield was Devin Taylor. Then he realized that he called it on Devin and said that’s why they picked the flag up. So, that was part of that scenario.”
On why he rotated C Graham Glasgow and G Laken Tomlinson at left guard: “We had talked about it and decided to do it earlier in the week. We wanted to get the young guy a little bit of the opportunity. Particularly right now, you know, we’ve had injuries here and there, so we wanted to try to get his feet wet a little bit, so we put him in and out. I’m not certain how he did, to be honest with you.”
On rotating CB Johnson Bademosi and CB Nevin Lawson at cornerback: “We had also made plans to do just that, so we did it as well with he and Nevin.”
On the creativity in the game plan with missing key players due to injury: “Yeah, you know, you have to try and muster up a running game and I don’t think we ran it as well as we liked, but we were patient. I think we would’ve run it 27 times or so. You need to run it somewhere around that number. You know, the production wasn’t quite where we wanted it, but oftentimes Corey (Robinson) will come in and help us with that aspect of it, but you know we can throw it as well. That was a couple little wrinkles. Getting Golden (Tate) the ball a little different way, tossing it to him also just gave him a little bit of a wrinkle early on and then they stopped the next two, so we didn’t get much out of him.”
On if he feels a sense of relief after this win: “No, no. I mean, it’s just one game, just one game, the first of a quarter. We have a lot of work to do, so we’ve got to go back to work, we’ve got to see if we can do it again, but this isn’t one of those things where you look at it and it’s a defining moment. There’s no shortcuts. Everybody thinks there’s some miracle pill or some great turnaround with one game. It takes work. It takes work and it takes time, but we’re still a long way away and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
On being aggressive in the run game in a couple different 4th-and-1 situations: “I give credit to the guys because they made those fourth downs, but it’s not unusual for us. Check the history, it’s not unusual for us to go for it on fourth down and be aggressive. I think at one point in time, at one point in the season, you’ll find it, we were up there for—which is what we do sometimes. If we think we have plays and people in place to get it done, we’ll try to be as aggressive as we can, but we also want to be prudent.”
On the importance of WR Golden Tate having the game that he had today: “I’m not certain it’s probably to the magnitude that you all think that it was or is. It wasn’t a defining moment. Golden’s been a player around here who’s played well for us a long time and I think he’ll continue to do so. I think, what did he have, three or four catches? But it just so happened that those catches were meaningful catches as opposed to nine or 10 balls. I think week in and week out you’re going to see that kind of fluctuation. We have so many guys, Anquan (Boldin), you know, you get Marvin (Jones Jr.) on the outside, I mean guys that can catch the ball and run with it. You’ve got Theo (Riddick), and there’s only one ball that can go around. I mean, we’re only going to throw it so many times a game. I don’t know how many times we threw it, 25 times this game? Something like that? 20-something times, you know, somewhere in that area. Maybe it was 27 runs, 25 passes, I believe. Not everybody’s going to be catching 10 balls in a game, we just have too many athletes running around that we want to get the ball to.”