2006 PRESEASON: DETROIT LIONS VS. BUFFALO BILLS POSTGAME QUOTES

The following are postgame quotes from the Detroit Lions' 20-13 preseason loss to the Buffalo Bills at Ford Field.HEAD COACH ROD MARINELLIOpening statement:

The following are postgame quotes from the Detroit Lions' 20-13 preseason loss to the Buffalo Bills at Ford Field.

HEAD COACH ROD MARINELLI
Opening statement: "Just a couple of things to kind of recap it. I didn't like how we came out. I think we came out a little bit slow. I would have liked to see the tackling and the fundamentals a little bit crisper early in the game. We kind of bounced back a little bit and played a bit harder. Some good things: I thought Josh (McCown) did a nice job tonight. We had such limited reps in the first - I think we had 6 snaps in the first quarter - so we kind of just let him finish that out and then put Dan (Orlovsky) in the second half to give some flow to it. Other than that, we have to make some tough decisions. We have to be able to watch the tape and see about the injuries. Tomorrow we'll get an injury report and see where we're at. Some guys got banged up a little bit, so I'll find out a little bit more tomorrow."

On the wide receiver rotation: "The coverage sometimes dictates certain things. Again, like I was saying to you the other day, it's not so much catching the ball; it's doing the other things: the precision in your routes, where you're supposed to be, do you know the offense? It's not just street ball where you go down and throw a guy the ball. It's do you know the offense? Do you understand the offense? All of those things are really important. There are a lot of young guys we want to look at too; there are a lot of people we want to look at - not just receivers - but other positions. I thought we had a good chance to get a good evaluation on everybody this off-season."

On why WR Charles Rogers only received ten plays: "Just kind of how it worked out for us. That's just how it worked out in the game."

On if his (Marinelli's) evaluation of Rogers is enough to decide if he makes the team or not: "I can't say that for another couple of days. These men have had an opportunity since March. It's not just one (preseason game), everything counts. Every practice counts; everything we've done. We've been evaluating; he's missed a couple of days because of injury. He had a chance to come back in and get some work in today. There were more guys than just those two (Rogers and Williams) that need to be evaluated. It's just not those two guys. So, we're looking at all of them."

On if he's already decided what he (Marinelli) thinks of Rogers: "No, I think we need to all now sit down with the personnel (department), the coaching staff and just see what guys… It's not all about him. It's about what guys are going to help us win. Where are we at right now? Let's look at our injury list; let's look at where everything is at right now and then come to some conclusions. I don't want to do it right now."

On how if he (Rogers) had only gotten one series how the evaluation would be: "And he didn't play two games right? He's been injured for two games. I think we've been evaluating for a year. I've said that. I don't know what else to tell you. If he played two more series would that be far? If he didn't catch any balls, is that fair? I don't know what fair is. These guys have had tons of reps all the way through camp - all the way through camp we've had reps. Practice is important, practice games are important - it's all important."

On how he thinks WR Shaun Bodiford and 'all of those guys' on special teams performed: "I mean he's (Bodiford) impressive - special teams - he's got position flexibility. He does a lot of different things. He covers kicks, punts - all of those things. The guy is trying to make himself valuable to this team by doing a lot of different things; (Glen) Martinez too. We had a chance to look at all of them; practices, games, all those things."

On how he thinks Rogers did on those ten plays: "I guess we've got to watch the tape and see it. All of a sudden there's no catch - oh, he had one catch right? The quick pass one - but it's so many other things you're looking for: the effort and the tempo and the precision - so many things that we want. I'm hoping somebody's going to ask about the nose tackle position - something else - the good battles there."

On the question involving Rogers as being the focus of attention because he was a second overall pick in 2003: "You can't come up here after a game and say something like that. You have to talk about fair; that's what you have to sit down and decide what's right for this team. That's what I'm saying - I'm answering the question - and he asked me what is fair. What is fair to this team is not always what is fair to the individual. What is fair and right for this football team? Pretty soon we've got to look at what's right for the Lions - what is right for the Detroit Lions? When does that count? That's the most important thing. I've said it from day one: it's Lions football. My thing is how do you make this team come together? Who is the right guy? It may not be the best 53, it may be the 53 that help you win - that's what you've got to understand. It might be the 53 that just help you win. That's our job, to find the right 53. It's not about any one guy. I know he (Rogers) is a second overall pick and all of those things. That's good, he's a heck a guy. We've got to go sit down and say what can we do to get this thing going? That's the No. 1 thing for me; that has got to be No. 1 for me."

On if when he evaluates players he looks at last year: "I can't do last year. No, not last year, I won't do that. It's everything we've been since we've been together. Everyday, every OTA day, everything; then there's things… have they digested the offense? Are you dying to be a great player? Do you claw the wall everyday? Do you understand what that means? I want to be the best player in America. I want to get 53 men like that; that live and die for football; that are here all day, that absorb information, eat information. That's what I'm looking for. I've been consistent with what I've said. The first day I was here I stated that. That's what I'm looking for and that's the thing we now have to evaluate. Are we getting that? Total evaluation - from March to now."

QB JOSH MCCOWN
On getting an extended amount of playing time: "Oh man, it was fun. Anytime you get a chance to play its fun. When you get a lot of extended time in the start of the football game - all that stuff is exciting as a player, especially when you've gone a week or so without getting a lot of time. I had a good time out there; I felt comfortable. There's always going to be things that you've got to look at to clean up, but for the most part I'm somewhat pleased with what I did. Like I said there's always room for improvement. As I look back, and I was telling Coach (Mike) Martz this the other day, when I look back from when the last time I was here to where I am now - this is why I came to Detroit and this is why I came to play for Coach Marinelli, and then to be coached by Coach Martz. I wanted to improve myself as a quarterback and I feel like I've done that and I'm proud of that. I'm thankful for the coaches for helping me get through that stuff and help to make me better."

On if he feels he's earned the No. 2 quarterback spot: "That's up to them. Like I said, my goal when I came here was to improve myself as a quarterback. Like I said before, that's either improve as a No. 1, improve as a No. 2 - I just want to be better as a player. That's what I'm focusing on and that's what I'm pleased with. They'll make that decision of who they think is best to step in there if something were to happen to Jon (Kitna)."

On going to WR Eddie Drummond: "Just the coverage they were giving us. Eddie's speed allows them to get those guys turned and those comeback's on the sideline are good for - he's such a threat because he runs by people. So that was really great for Eddie; he was running good routes and it made it easy for me to just to lay the ball out there."

On where he thinks he's made the most improvement as a quarterback: "I just think a lot of areas; but there are a lot of little things. Mainly I think I just have a renewed confidence. With this system, it has to do a lot with anticipation and just trusting guys - letting that ball go on the sideline and knowing that Eddie's going to come out of his break and catch it. A lot of those things, some of those things that I've struggled with in the past, and I'd gotten better and a little better and Kurt (Warner) came out there last year and so it got a little better under Kurt - but it still hadn't really taken that step forward in that area. So anticipation is one of those things I feel like I've gotten a lot better on and is one of those things that I've targeted in my game that I wanted to get better. When you start doing that and start throwing the ball with confidence your level of play goes up tremendously. That's what I think happens, even in the last couple of weeks I've really started to feel comfortable in that area."

On if he made a conscious decision to let things develop and not run: "Oh no, that's all instinctive. I couldn't - if they told me not to run, I couldn't not run - that's just part of my game and when it presents itself I go. Those are things I wanted to work on to get better; the running and that stuff is something I feel like I can do. That's some god given talent there and so I want to work on the other things that I can get better at and improve my game. If the running's there, it happens but I don't ever try to run. It's just something that goes on and I don't ever try not to."

On if they told him he would play the first half and then QB Dan Orlovsky would come in: "Pretty much - that's how it was coming in. They kind of let us rotate through the week and then told us a day or two ago, I can't remember, that we would go out there. We still didn't know if we were going to rotate there in the first half or just exactly how they were going to do it. I think he and I both feel comfortable just playing and not having to go back and forth, so that was kind of nice, just to get in there and get your time in."

LIONS WR EDDIE DRUMMOND
On having a productive night: "I appreciated the opportunity that Coach Mike Martz gave me this year. I've been waiting for it for four years, and I've been proving to them at practice and as you saw, like in game situations, I had to start today because Roy (Williams) couldn't."

On seizing the opportunity to play more at the WR position: "It's just due time for me to get into the receiver position, I just needed somebody to come in. I've been training for receiver for the past four years, it's just that nobody gave me the opportunity. Luckily, I can come in here, get a couple of catches, get a touchdown to show the coaches and give them confidence in me."

On if he's looking forward to seeing the ball more often: "Oh definitely. I'm probably going to be the guy that's going to catch some crossing routes, short passes and trying to get that YAC (yards after catch). Plays like that can change the momentum of the game - turning the short pass into a big play. And that's what the coaching staff is expecting of us."

On how good this team can be heading into the Seattle game: "It's real good, it's just depends on the coaches right now as far as evaluating everybody and picking the best team for this year and hopefully everything works well and we have the guys that we want so we can get to the playoffs and a big game."

LIONS G DAMIEN WOODY
 On playing tonight: "I did alright, ready to get some more time against Seattle."

On not liking to sit out practice: You just hope for the opportunity. Everybody's out there pressing and working so to be out here with the guys right now feels really good."

On Mike Martz's offense: "It's a totally different scheme from the West Coast offense. Everything is designed to attack the defense; keep the defense off balance and we can score on one play - that's what we're trying to do and that's what we're building towards and I think we'll building that right now towards Seattle.

LIONS DT MARCUS BELL
On if this is the way the defense wanted to end the preseason to continue into the regular season: "Personally, I don't feel that this was the best performance. It was what it was. It started off kind of slow, but the bottom line is once these guys (Buffalo Bills) open up and score on you on the first opening drive you just have to bounce back and keep playing the game."

On if they did bounce back after that opening drive: "Defensively, and as a team as a whole, that's something we try to pride ourselves on. Bad things are going to happen over the course of a game, but you have to put that behind you when you make a good play and you have to put that behind you when something bad happens. So you have to treat them both the same. I think for the most part our guys did that, we still made some mistakes after that, but that's what you play for. You have to take it, made a mistake, learn from it and keep it moving."

On being called 'one of the standouts of the preseason' by Head Coach Rod Marinelli: "I'm not a guy who's big on accolades and personal attention. I'm a team guy, I'm a family guy, so that's how I treat this. It's not just me, or Shaun Rogers, or one person. Really, my goal is to get the win. If we get a win, and I have no tackles, I just want to win."

On how much better will the defensive line get with the return of Shaun Rogers for the season opener against Seattle: "Well it's not just him - there's no question, he's a beast. Therefore, he's going to add that attention to him with the opposing team gameplanning him and his play alone just steps everything up."

On how good can this defense be: "It's really not about, 'we can be this; we can be that.' Like coach said, we're not all about the talking. The key is preparing each week, week in, week out, trying to make plays and stack the wins up."

LIONS RB BRIAN CALHOUN
On finishing the preseason: "It's the end of the preseason, but we've gotten better from week-to-week although we've lost the last three. I think we still need to shore up some details and some fundamentals, but I think we have a lot of positives to look forward to next week against Seattle."

On if he felt comfortable running the ball tonight: "I think I did. I think it came along with time and then I got into the flow of the game and more carries. It takes a couple of weeks to get into the groove, but this week I definitely felt better. I had a good week of practice and that carried over from the practice field to the game field."

On getting more acclimated with Offensive Coordinator Mike Martz's offense as the preseason went on: "It definitely takes awhile, especially for running backs because things happen a lot faster as far as running the offense and picking up blitzes and learning how guys come out faster at different angles. It took me a little while, but thank goodness in the fourth week of the preseason I kind of got the flow of it and now I'm ready to jumpstart the regular season."

On being able to line up at different positions on this offense: "We have a lot of playmakers on the team, and I'm just trying to find my niche in anyway possible whether that's being a third down back, playing special teams or whatever. I'm just trying to help this team win."

BUFFALO HEAD COACHÂ DICK JAURON
On Buffalo winning the game: "It's always good to win, we know it's a preseason game and it's the last one, so it's very good to win. I thought the first group did a nice job starting out the game; its great to keep the ball, take it down and put it in the end zone to start it out. Our defense had a good first series and its kind of what we hoped would happen. So it went about how you would like to script it, and then we got to look at a lot of other players, which we needed to do. There's a lot of guys still competing for a job. I thought overall that the whole team played hard, and that was kind of our theme here - we need to play smart; smarter than what we had played and hard for the entire game. It was pretty simple, but I think they did a nice job of executing that. We didn't give it up a lot, we didn't have a lot of penalties and those are kind of the things that have plagued us before. All and all, it was a good night for us."

On the play of his offense: "Well, I haven't looked at it yet (from film), but from the sidelines it certainly looked like Peerless (Price) showed up on the first one and made a couple of catches. Josh (Reed) showed up on the game in general and made a couple of real nice plays. We ran the ball well. I thought Willis (McGahee) looked very quick. We blocked okay upfront, gave him a little room, and when he got the room he made some people miss. He took the ball down quickly, north and south, which is what we're going to have to do. It looks like we're running pretty good routes. In general, executing, keeping drives alive; making plays - things we haven't done on a consistent basis. I thought J.P. (Losman) had time to execute what he needed to execute."

On the play of the defense: "Our defensive line had to do a good job, I think. Certainly early our first guys did, but they weren't in there that long. Once again, I thought the key was, we wanted to play hard. We know we're not going to be right all the time - we just need to play hard all the time. And then the silly mistakes - eliminating the foolish errors. We'll be alright if we can do that."

BUFFALO QB JP LOSMAN
On if things clicked on offense: "Yeah, it felt great. We go out there with a plan; we're trying to execute it every week and today we were able to come out from the get-go and do that. We showed peaks and valleys throughout the preseason, but to come out and do it on the first drive was impressive.

On the upward curve of the team's improvement: "Every week we get better, minus the little mistakes and that's what the preseason is for. As much as we don't want to play these games obviously we showed we need to play these games to get rid of those little mistakes and we're just trying to carry that over to Week 1.

On the team's confidence: "That's what we wanted to do: start off fast and use this momentum into the first game. We need to come into work tomorrow and get started on New England and start looking at some film and keep things rolling."

BUFFALO RB WILLIS MCGHEE
On the team's execution: "The first team offense looked real good. We came out there, executed and we got the job done. We took the fast lead and that was it. "

On the team's weekly improvement: "I know the first three games were shaky. There were a lot of mental errors and that was just killing us. We were wishing we could start out fast and finish strong without any errors and we did and you could see what happened."

On the team's confidence going into New England: "It's a real good confidence booster. We know we can go out there and execute plays and do what we've got to do and everybody can do their assignments - you know we can't lose."

On how he is felling: "I'm feeling pretty good; I just can't wait to play right now."

On McGhee being at top speed: "I think I'm faster than what I was. I've been working hard this off-season just to get to where I'm at right now. Hopefully it's all going to pay off."

BILLS QB KELLY HOLCOMB
On the difference in all four preseason games: "I think the first game, obviously, we were still learning. We still were struggling with what (Offensive Coordinator) Steve Fairchild wanted us to do in certain situations. So next week is better than the next week and I think today I thought we played pretty well."

On if he felt comfortable with his amount of snaps: "Yeah, I did. I've been gaining confidence every week. I wish I could have played last week, but it was good to get out there and get another game under your belt in this offense. That's what you want to do. It's a new offense, definitely a new offense for me, so I felt comfortable in that. I really enjoyed getting back out there and executing the offense."

On if that's how he wanted to end the preseason: "That's what you want to do. The last preseason game, it's a tune up, obviously for the season. You want to go out there and you want to look good. He told me I wasn't going to play much, so the snaps that you did play you want to go out there and you want to play well. I thought all together offensively, we did pretty good."

 

Courtesy of the Lions