Matt Millen~"You ######, yeah you heard me, you ######."Monte Clark~"The key to this whole business is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made."
Matt Millen~"Well, I have a guy right now who I believe is a devout coward."
Barry Sanders~"I quit because I didn't feel like the Detroit Lions had a chance to win. It just killed my enjoyment of the game."
Wayne Fontes~"We gave you guys some hope. When we came here, we never had that."
Bobby Ross~"We took a licking at the line of scrimmage, and just about everywhere else, too."
Luther Elliss~"Not again! Not again!"
Johnnie Morton~"We try not to think about what our history has been here but it's impossible to completely forget it."
Johnnie Morton~"It doesn't make any sense. We were a 10-point favorite playing against a team that already had their stuff packed. And we still couldn't get it done. The NFC playoffs are more wide-open than at any time since I've been here. And we still couldn't get it done. We could have gone into the playoffs with confidence with road wins at Tampa, New York and New Orleans. And we still couldn't get it done."
Tracy Scroggins~"We didn't win the big game, this is definitely one of the most disappointing moments I've had here."
Gary Moeller~"Obviously, it was a very disappointing day."
James Stewart~"It's disappointing because there are teams in the playoffs that we've beaten this year."
Gary Moeller~"If you can't run the football, you can't win, our offense was terrible. Also, our blocking and tackling was poor."
Charlie Batch~"But I know I'm going to take most of the blame from you guys and others, and that's fine. It comes with the territory, and I accept it. But I know that I'm not totally at fault. It's a collective thing. We're not completely in sync offensively."
Herman Moore~"We're not fooling anybody, and opposing teams know it. Indianapolis certainly didn't have the reputation of being very aggressive defensively before we got them."
Bobby Ross~"For one, the protection was awful, we have to get that squared away before we can work on anything else. Our vertical part of our passing game is not where it has to be and especially not what it is capable of being."
Ron Rice~"We got our tails whipped -- offensively, defensively and on special teams. That's disappointing when you put in as much time and work as we did during the week."
Herman Moore~"A lot of it is frustration. I've never done that before. There are very few things I've done in my life that I've been disappointed in and I was real disappointed I did that."
Allen Aldridge~"We have to get better. We want to get to the playoffs. We want to get to that next level and try to get a championship. We have to play better."
Scott Mitchell~"In spite of all of our -- my -- mistakes, we still had a chance to win it at the end--and then I made another one."
Scott Mitchell~"If there was any positive tonight, it was that we came away with some points and didn't make mistakes."
Darryl Rogers~"Whats it take to get fired around here anyhow."
Bobby Ross~"You think I coach that?."
Joey Harrington~"It's frustrating. You look back through the course of the game and pick out five or six plays that we could have, should have, would have made a difference but you never know when they are going to come up."
Jason Hanson~"You lose on an extra point, that's about the worst way you can lose a game right there. Everybody had great character and everything, but I think everybody's tired of character tests. That was just garbage that we didn't make that and we lost."
Matt Millen~"I don't want to say anything, I'll wind up regretting it."
Reggie Swinton~"It's disappointing, getting beat like that on national TV, it was embarrassing. We have to bounce back somehow."
James Hall~"The days of talking are over."
Roy Williams~"We were just out of it, we didn't run it, we didn't pass it, didn't catch it. It was bad all the way around."
Joey Harrington~"Donovan McNabb, Brett Favre, Jeff Garcia, Matt Hasselbeck -- those are the guys who run this offense very well. They control the game very well and we couldn't."
Robert Porcher~"We got our asses kicked. They opened holes in us like it was the Red Sea."
Bobby Ross~"I appologize to the Lions fans. We were booed, and we deserved to be booed. We did not play very well."
Barry Sanders~"We just don't look that good. We don't have the fire, we're not playing with a lot of passion."
Corey Raymond~"I knew the play. I made the play. I had 95 percent of it down. It's just the last 5 percent."
Scott Mitchell~"Why? I have no explanations."
Pepper Johnson~"I'm sick to my stomach to see what actually happened out there on the football field, to just have us running around in disarray, undisciplined as far as guys just maintaining their self-esteem and playing ball."
Pepper Johnson~"We were flat. We started off flat and we played the whole four quarters flat."
Scott Mitchell~"If this is all my fault, hopefully he can tell that to me or tell that to you."
Wayne Fontes~"You guys might put the Wayne watch in there, but we've got a lot of season left. I've been here before, #######, I've been here before."
Brett Perriman~"We stunk the place up."
Henry Thomas~"We had goals and we didn't reach them."
Wayne Fontes~"Our defense did not play very well. What we did not want to happen, happened."
Herman Moore~"We've played nine games so far and we're yet to play a complete one."
Matt Millen~"What I said was stupid and wrong, I would hope I learned a big lesson because those words were careless."
Chris Claiborne~"It doesn't matter how good your quarterback is if the guys aren't catching the ball."
Marty Mornhinweg~"Green Bay put a football clinic on today, period. We're not going to make any excuses."
Steve Mariucci~"Well, we're a ways away from a playoff team."
Barrett Green~"It's crazy, it's crazy."
Roy Williams~"It’ll probably be ugly. Especially with this loss coming from Green Bay, it will probably be ugly. The fans are upset and they probably can’t wait until next year to get a fresh start. I know they’re going to be tough on us, they’re going to be hard on us, we just have to go out there and play our game and not worry about what they’re doing."
Roy Williams~" I know the fans are frustrated – you know, 50 years of frustration and what not. But it can’t be bad forever. I promise you that, I promise you. To the fans, I promise you, this thing is not going to be the way that it’s been. Especially not as long as they keep on bringing these young guys in and we keep trying to fight and to make plays – it’s not going to last forever."
**** Bon Jovi Jauron~" We do have the game and they do have each other and that’s a lot."
**** Jauron~"Everybody has opinions on what’s wrong, but I don’t think that anybody knows. Find me the person that knows – that knows exactly what’s wrong."
Roy Williams~"I have three weeks to make up for that play and I know I will."
Earl Holmes~"Honestly, I think what needs to happen is a W."
Dre Bly~"Joey’s been here four years, and being the No. 3 pick in the draft, he hasn’t given us anything."
Damien Woody~"This is a different team. Last year was last year and there are a lot of new guys on this team so we are going to go out there to try and put our best foot forward on national television."
Dre Bly~"We could have played better. We had a chance to be really up in this division, but when the Bears came out they were more prepared, they played harder and it showed."
Roy Williams~"Is this team cursed."
Roy Williams~"I've never been on a team where things just go wrong all the time, like all the time. You would think that at some point, things would start to roll our way, but it just seems that something stupid always happens with us."
Radio Host Jim Rome~"It is getting brutal in the Dee."
Radio Host Jim Rome~"They’re just another bad NFL team, no different than say the Texans, Niners or Lions."
Chris Spielman~"It's not fun for anybody."
Matt Millen~"I was angry after that game, it was disturbing to watch, and I did not want to make a decision based on anger."
Radio Host Rob Parker~"Steve Mariucci came to Detroit as a savior and left a complete failure."
Radio Host Rob Parker~"It was very frustrating."
William Clay Ford 1982~"A ragtag operation."
William Clay Ford 1982~"We take two hours sending in the wrong plays."
William Clay Ford 1982~"This was a total team defeat, and I'll throw the coaching staff in there. I don't think the staff is imaginative."
Al Bubba Baker~"no enthusiasm."
Joe Schmidt~"Its no longer fun."
Radio Host Mike Stone~"I remember Joe Theismann saying if they don't draft Andre Ware, it's a mistake, and he was a bust. Everything they do, even if you think it's the right thing, turns to garbage."
Radio Host Mike Stone~"National recognition of what a disaster this is."
Eddie Murray~"This team has had a lot of turmoil lately because of Billy Sims's situation."
Eddie Murray~"I've missed game-winning field goals before, but not like this. During the season I can get over it in a week but this time I've got all year to think about missing it."
Billy Sims~"If my I.Q. is so bad, I'm sure they don't want me in that organization."
Darryl Rogers ~"I am not a candidate. I have not had any discussions with anybody in Detroit. I was not in Detroit. I don't know how all of this got started."
Darryl Rogers ~"You'd think that those are things you could work on and overcome. We've worked on them and perfected them."
William Clay Ford 1987~"'Darryl is going to be back next year."
Darryl Rogers ~"I'm very disappointed things didn't work out better. I was given a fine opportunity by the Detroit Lions organization but we just didn't get it done."
Darryl Rogers ~"As head coach, you take full responsibility for your team and, unfortunately, the results were not positive. There is no one to blame in this situation."
Lomas Brown~"It was three plays and out, three and out, three and out over and over, punt, punt, punt."
Wayne Fontes~"Our offense today set football back 100 years."
Jerry Ball~"It seemed like our defense was out on the field a game and a half."
Chuck Long~"A game like this makes reality really set in. We're as good as our record."
William Clay Ford 1989~"We're boring and we're losing. I can't think of two worse adjectives to apply to the way we're playing."
Pete Mandley~"We've got Wayne Fontes, a players coach! We've got Coach Mouse Davis, the inventor of the run-and-shoot offense we will run! We've got Coach June Jones, who ran this offense last year at Houston! We drafted the Heisman Trophy winner, Barry Sanders! We've got Rodney Peete, a really promising, mobile quarterback who finished second in the Heisman voting. We're becoming a team where pressure is gonna be our best friend."
William Clay Ford 1989~"Obviously, we want to be part of a winning community. Wayne, I think, is going to make us part of that winning community."
Rodney Peete~"I'm not thinking about losing."
Mouse Davis~"They were soooo bad."
Wayne Fontes~"It's the offense of the future."
Barry Sanders~"Statistics are for losers."
Barry Sanders~"They say, Change it and change it and change it until it's changed. I don't see any change yet."
Erik Kramer~"I joined the Lions initially wanting to solidify that No. 3 spot behind Rodney and Andre."
Andre Ware~"It's time to quit treating me like a kid and realize I'm a 25-year-old man."
Andre Ware~"You think this is a tryout? We're trying to get to the playoffs and I'm the guy. I'm not interested in a quarterback controversy. If he won't give it to me, I'll put it on myself. Ship me out of here if I can't get it done. But let me prove it first."
Wayne Fontes~"We're not scoring and it's time to make a change."
Wayne Fontes~"If one of these guys can't take us to the promised land, maybe we should shop for one. You can have the greatest running back of all time, but if you don't have a consistent quarterback, you don't win."
Bobby Ross~"We want our checks and that's good enough for us. Winning isn't that important as long as we get our paycheck."
Bobby Ross~"I've got tunnel vision on how it's going to be done. And it's going to be done the right way. We're not going to back off from it for one second."
Bobby Ross~"There's just not the competitive fire and spark that I would want to see from our ball club at this stage."
Bobby Ross~"They're either going to have to conform and learn to do it, or somewhere down the road something's going to happen."
Johnnie Morton~"It seemed like every play, someone wasn't there."
Charlie Batch~"I have no answers."
Bobby Ross~"You'd think I just rolled out of bed today and have no history with coaching and with players."
Bobby Ross~"It's nonsense the way this is happening, how I'm being crucified for a guy that just doesn't want to play football anymore."
Bobby Ross~"I have coached football nearly all of my life and to have to answer those kind of questions about my character and my motives, it's insulting."
William Clay Ford 2000~"What do you want me to do, fire myself? I'm not going to."
Bobby Ross~"I don't care how many Pro Bowls you've gone to, I don't care if you're going into the Hall of Fame. I don't care what would happen to our salary cap. I can still get rid of you."
William Clay Ford 2000~"I think he felt that he really just burned himself out, physically and mentally. He really didn't have any more to give. The gas tank was empty."
Charlie Sanders~"I don't understand why the Lions are appealing my case. There is no question that the injury that cut down my career was sustained in a game for the Lions. They said so in a press release announcing my retirement."
Charlie Sanders~"I was really gung-ho for the team. But a vet took me aside one day and said, One day you'll learn. This is a business. A cold business. If you're of no use to them, you're gone."
Monte Clark~"If you want sympathy, it's in the dictionary."
Marty Mornhinweg~"We made the decision to go with Joey, and unless something really drastic happens we are going to work through all of his mistakes, period."
Robert Porcher~"They're not out there making Joey throw interceptions. They're not out there making our receivers drop balls. It's so easy just to put it all on Marty and Matt. We all have to be responsible for our actions."
William Clay Ford 2003~"I want him; I don't need any more reason than that."
William Clay Ford 1966~"It always is an unpleasant step to take, however my goal is to field a winning football team in Detroit and I reluctantly have come to the conclusion that our chances would be better with a change of head coach."
Magistrate John Hurbis~"Fontes has failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he has a disability, which arose out of, and in the course of, his employment with the Detroit Lions."
David Ware~"See, Barry doesn't play football for the money or the glory. I'm telling you, Barry might, just might, shock the world."
Barry Sanders~"We're making silly mistakes. And on this level, when you do that, you don't have much of a chance."
Barry Sanders~"I don't have the answer."
Barry Sanders~"A player, every player, and every coach has to do everything in their power to make the team better, to make himself better. I guess we just don't have that."
Lomas Brown~"I said that because I thought we had the better team. They had the better team today. They beat us convincingly. I don't have any problem admitting that."
Lomas Brown~"Any time you turn the ball over six times, you could play a high school team and you're not going to win."
Wayne Fontes~"Well, first it was 7-7 and then I turned around and it was 31-7."
Herman Moore~"You can't yank a quarterback like that. This isn't like baseball where you can pull a pitcher out. I can't speak for Wayne or for Scott, but from my standpoint this is terrible. I'm fed up. Put that in the paper. I've never in my whole life felt like this."
Monte Clark~"It's a shame it had to come down to a missed field goal."
Gary Danielson~"I was proud of the way I came back in the second half. It's tough to throw a lot of interceptions and still come back. I would have liked to play better, but I'm not embarrassed."
Billy Sims~"We spotted the 49ers 14 points today, and that's a tough thing to do in a playoff game. It was a close, hard-fought game, and it's too bad it had to come down to a missed field goal. Usually from that distance Murray is deadly."
George Paper Lion Plimpton 2003~"One more play. If the Lions score and recover the onside kick and kick a field goal, they win."
Joey Harrington~"It was ugly and it was embarrassing."
Steve Mariucci~"I shoulder the responsibility for this football team. It isn't any one thing, it is a multitude of things, and those are what a head coach is responsible for."
Marty Mornhinweg~"Our goal is to go 6-10, period. This football team has been through seven down-to-the-wire, crazy games. It's getting a little crazy at this point."
Lomas Brown~"Because they were each in and out of the lineup so much, guys on the team started picking their favorites. Rodney's best. No, Erik is best. No it was Andre. It sort of divided the team. It got kind of ridiculous."
Lomas Brown~"Scott is the man and there are no ifs, buts or ands about it. The locker room is all on the same side once again. Everybody is riding on Scott."
Benny Blades~"If you break down this team man for man, we have talent to compare with any team."
Scott Mitchell~"They put their money where their mouth was. This is what I've always wanted. If I didn't want the pressure, that responsibility, I would have stayed where I was. They're going to get their money's worth."
Barry Sanders~"We've always had question marks at quarterback but now that is over. We've had a taste of the playoffs, even the N.F.C. championship game, but now we want a little more. We want to stay healthy, first. And if that happens, see you in January."
Robert Bailey~"Some guys thought that was bad. For the entire team, this was a stunning deal. It was like your 15-year-old daughter coming home and telling you she's pregnant. What can you do? You sit there, numb. Barry obviously had a lot on his mind, more than we thought he did."
Robert Bailey~"Barry's an athlete and he can do it all. He's Barry. There was no hint he would quit."
Gary Moeller~"Who wants to lose great players? You lose them all the time with injury and through free agency, but not quite like this."
Gary Moeller~"Who is going to lead now."
Bobby Ross~"But it is my job to challenge the players and I'm going to do that and they can't be so fragile that there becomes finger-pointing."
Ron Rivers~"I see it as an opportunity. If it's my time, so be it."
Bobby Ross~"No one will ever know how much I tried to work with Barry."
Robert Porcher~"We've lost something great, but all we need is a chance to do something great and shock people even more. It's here. We have it."
Robert Porcher~"We had tuned out our old coach."
Robert Porcher~"Every time I heard about Mariucci out west, it was about him getting fired. That wears on you. That's pressure. He's embraced here and we just say, 'Welcome back home, we've been waiting for you.' We've got a brand-new stadium, a brand new practice facility and now a coach with credibility."
Steve Mariucci~"But then this opportunity came along and it's got a great upside, a city hungry to win. I happen to think this is a sleeping giant."
Steve Mariucci~"I'm a much better coach than I was six years ago."
Charlie Batch~"People are counting us out as a team and we have 12 games left to play. I don't understand that."
Bobby Layne~"I'd like to win a championship for the Steelers and for myself to shove down Detroits throat."
Bobby Layne~"After all those years, it was a pretty crude way to brush someone off."
Damien Woody~"To lose a game like that, when the defense scores two touchdowns, is disgusting."
Damien Woody~"I'm ashamed of it, and everybody else on the offense should be ashamed of it."
Damien Woody~"It seems like everyone wants to take this offense by the hand and walk it like a little child. I get tired of hearing the excuses. That's disgusting. That's pitiful."
Joey Harrington~"I feel terrible for our defense. I went up to them and apologized. There's nothing else I can say except I'm sorry."
Carmella DeCesare~"I lost all respect for the Detroit fans."
Damien Woody~"There's no magical pill. Somebody out there, whoever it is, has got to make plays when the opportunity presents itself.."
Joey Harrington~"We made a lot of mistakes, and I compounded it."
Bobby Ross~"It bothers me that we were so careless and indifferent and it all falls back on me. It means we probably don't have a good coach."
Bobby Ross~"When I leave Detroit, I want people to think that I fought and competed. You want your ballclub to be a model of what you are and today I failed."
Juan Roque~"I'm a rookie. I have to learn. You make mistakes and you go on. I thought we had it sealed off, but you're playing against some pretty good players out there."
Bobby Ross~"We'd overthrow, we'd underthrow. We just didn't play well at a very important position."
Barry Sanders~"I hope this is the low point."
Scott Mitchell~"We made it hard on ourselves."
Bobby Ross~"Our special teams play was just atrocious. That and turnovers were the difference in the game."
Robert Porcher~"It's the same old story. We had a chance and didn't get it done. We have got to find a way to win playoff games."
Stephen Boyd~"No excuses, we tried to fight back, but we couldn't."
Matt Millen~"Let me reiterate and say it's not a happy day."
Marty Mornhinweg~"We didn't score any touchdowns, that's the first thing you have to look at."
Charlie Batch~"I made a lot of mistakes but they were correctable mistakes."
Marty Mornhinweg~"At no time did we think about putting Detmer in the game. We will do whatever it takes to get this team winning."
Charlie Batch~"I had time to make the reads but the weather had an effect."
Ty Detmer~"That's not me. I was just trying to do way too much with the ball today."
Marty Mornhinweg~"We will get this thing right. Some of the players were talking in the locker room that when we get this thing right it is going to be good. It's not right now as we all saw on the football field."
Ty Detmer~"I'm disappointed. I'm embarrassed."
Herman Moore~"We stunk up the place. It's the same mistakes every week. It's not one person or one position. We got to get our acts together."
Marty Mornhinweg~"Geez, it looked like we had a chance to pull back into the game and then mistakes kill us. Obviously, our offense is giving us problems."
Matt Millen~"We didn't stop anybody and put ourselves in the hole once again. And then we make the same stupid mistakes. It's never just one thing with us or one player. It's always a combination of things."
Charlie Batch~"We lost. We're 0-4."
Charlie Batch~"I'm just shaking my head because we wouldn't have enough time to get our offense up to the line and stop the clock."
Charlie Batch~"If you'd have told me at the start of the season we'd be sitting at 0-5, I'd never have believed you."
Ron Rice~"We haven't done anything right all year."
Aaron Gibson~"I thought I was just being aggressive. If there was a whistle, I didn't hear it. I didn't know the play was over."
Ron Rice~"I never thought I'd be in this situation in the NFL. No way do I feel we're an 0-6 team."
Marty Mornhinweg~"As you can tell, I'm upset right now. Yet, you have to back away and understand it's part of building an organization. You have some crazy things happen, and we've had our share."
Robert Porcher~"I'd go no sacks, no hurries, no nothing , for a win."
Charlie Batch~"If we were getting blown out, it would be one thing. But to keep losing by three or four points a game is tough to swallow."
Marty Mornhinweg~"We just need to win one close game. Then you have the confidence to win the rest of them."
Marty Mornhinweg~"The record really doesn't matter."
Marty Mornhinweg~"A 10-point lead is the most deceiving lead in all of sports. One play, one bounce of the ball, one call and it is a whole different game."
Jason Hanson~"Today, we missed three field goals and we lose. That's not a mystery. So in the grand picture, you almost start to say it's a curse. This is no curse. This is not getting it done every week."
Tracy Scroggins~"It's like we won the Super Bowl. One win is better than none. All the talk that we were going to be 0-16 and the worst team in the NFL history. We don't have to hear that anymore."
Cory Schlesinger~"It's a great win for us and it gets the monkey off our back, and hopefully it will get comedians off our back."
Mike McMahon~"Anything that could go wrong basically happened."
Marty Mornhinweg~"He missed some easy ones today. He will recover from that."
Ty Detmer~"I'm not happy at all. We got shut out. When that happens, it means the quarterback isn't making enough plays."
Marty Mornhinweg~"We went through four or five seasons of adversity this year."
Roy Williams~"This is tough, I'll admit. I lost 10 games at Texas my whole career, and I've now lost 19 games here in two years."
Roy Williams~"The quarterback situations never work out here in Detroit. The running back situation? They haven't had a winning season since Barry Sanders. Was he the one-man show? Our defense is playing their butts off, but we're not doing anything offensively."
Roy Williams~"Something stupid always happens with us. But you know, it's like the lotto, you can't win if you don't play. I don't know, is this team cursed? If it is, let's get over it."
Jeff Garcia~"Plays have to be made, and we have to find a way to make them. All of us."
Dre Bly~"Our fans deserve to have a victory more than we do. They've been struggling longer than a lot of us have on this team."
Matt Millen~"He did a couple things today in practice and I sat there, and I just wanted to grab him by the throat and choke him."
Matt Millen~"Then you get into the game and it's like, Where are your ####?" Radio Host Sean Baligian~"People are sick of letting the Lions waste their Sundays and watching them become a national joke over the past five years."
Jeff Backus~"It's not like I have any sentimental relationship with Ford Field. All we've pretty much done there is lose games. It's not like we've won a championship in the building. I had so many great memories of playing at Michigan Stadium. It's not that way with Ford Field."
Alex Karras~"Everybody always wanted me to be sorry, I guess, and I am. And I'm tired of it. And I want to play football and, well, if I can't I'll have to do something else."
Tom Dempsey~"I knew I could kick the ball that far, but whether or not I could kick it straight that far kept running through my mind."
Roy Williams~"In two years, our time is coming."
Roy Williams~"They're hoping for us to lose to get what they want -- as far as management, as far as the players they want out of here."
Charles Rogers~"I wish we could give the fans a little more. I'm sorry it turned out this way."
Dre Bly~"I came out flat. When I came out for pregame, I didn't have no energy. When I just looked up in the stands, it disgusted me to see all the orange and black. When I came back in, I tried to pump myself back up. ... It was crushing to us."
**** Jauron~"All the things that we didn't want to have happen, they happened out there, and the game got out of hand."
Artose Pinner~"This was a game where we could measure ourselves against a playoff team, and I think this game showed that we need a lot of work."
Roy Williams~"I don't think this team can go anywhere else but up."
Jeff Komlo~"I'm not a criminal"
Joe Cullen~"I would like to apologize to the Detroit Lions organization, our fans, my family and friends for any embarrassment these incidents (Driving Drunk and Naked) have caused."
Rod Marinelli~“It's great to get this opportunity. I want to turn the Lions into a championship team. It's going to take hard work and I'll assemble a staff that will work hard for this organization."
Rod Marinelli~“You can't go 0-16 and expect to keep your job"
