WEEK 7: SUNDAY, OCT. 25, 2020
The following are post-game notes and quotes from the Detroit Lions’ 23-22 victory over the Atlanta Falcons at
Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Sunday, Oct. 25, 2020.
POST-GAME NOTES
LIONS SCORING PLAYS
- First Quarter: RB D’Andre Swift rushed for a three-yard score with 4:16 left in the quarter to give Detroit a 7-0 lead.
K Matt Prater converted the extra point. - Second Quarter: K Matt Prater hit a 50-yard field goal as time expired to narrow the score to 14-10.
- Third Quarter: K Matt Prater connected on a 51-yard field goal to cut Atlanta’s lead to 14-13 with 7:34 left in the quarter.
- Fourth Quarter: K Matt Prater hit a 49-yard field goal with 3:16 left in the game to give Detroit a 16-14 lead.
- Fourth Quarter: QB Matthew Stafford threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to TE T.J. Hockenson as time expired to tie the game at 22-22. K Matt Prater’s extra point lifted Detroit to the 23-22 victory.
TEAM NOTES
The Lions… - Produced at least 21 points for the sixth-straight game. The only other times the Lions have produced at least 21 points scored in each of the first six games of a season were in 1954 and 1951.
- Recorded their second fourth-quarter comeback this season after doing so at Arizona in Week 3.
- Have now scored points in 10 consecutive quarters dating back to Week 4 vs. New Orleans (fourth quarter of Week 4 through fourth quarter of Week 7).
- Have now scored touchdowns in seven consecutive quarters dating back to Week 4 vs. New Orleans (fourth quarter of Week 4 through first quarter of Week 7).
- Now have seven rushing touchdowns this season, their most through the first six games of a season since 1998.
- Now have six forced fumbles through six games played.
INDIVIDUAL NOTES
WR KENNY GOLLADAY - Caught six passes for 114 yards (19.0 avg.). This marks his second-consecutive 100-yard game, the second such streak of his career.
- Now has 10-career 100-yard games and nine 100-yard games with QB Matthew Stafford. His nine 100-yard games with Stafford are the third-most 100-yard games Stafford has connected on with a player.
- Produced 50 receiving yards for the ninth-straight road game dating back to 2019, the longest active streak in the NFL. It ties WR Johnnie Morton (1999-2000) for the third-longest streak in franchise history.
- Produced 30 receiving yards for the 14th-straight game, the third-longest active streak in the NFL.
TE T.J. HOCKENSON - Recorded five receptions for 59 yards (11.8 avg.) and the game-winning touchdown.
- Now has a three-game touchdown streak, tied for the longest touchdown streak by a tight end in franchise history since the merger.
- Has now produced four receiving touchdowns through the first six games of the season, the second-most touchdowns a Lions tight end has produced through the first six games of any season.
WR MARVIN JONES JR. - Had five receptions for 80 yards (16.0 avg.), his highest receiving output of the season.
- Produced a catch for the 87th-straight game
DE ROMEO OKWARA - Logged three solo tackles, 2.0 sacks, three quarterback hits, one tackle for loss and one forced fumble.
- Upped his season total to 4.0 sacks, currently the team lead.
- Produced his second-career multi-sack game.
- Recorded his third-career forced fumble.
- Logged a tackle for loss in his fifth-straight game, the longest streak of his career.
K MATT PRATER - Finished three-of-four on field goal attempts and two-of-two on extra points for 11 points scored.
- Kicked the game-winning extra point on the last play of the game.
- Produced his sixth-career game with multiple field goals of at least 50 yards, tied for the most such games in NFL history.
- Connected on his 55th-career field goal of 50-plus yards, closing in on K Sebastian Janikowski’s NFL record of 58 such kicks.
QB MATTHEW STAFFORD - Finished 25-of-36 (69.4%) for 340 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions and a 108.6 passer rating.
- Threw an 11-yard touchdown pass as time expired en route to his 30th-career fourth-quarter comeback and 36thcareer game-winning drive. He leads the NFL in fourth-quarter comebacks and is second in game-winning drives since entering the League in 2009.
- Produced a passing touchdown for the 12th-straight game, tied for the fourth-longest streak of his career.
- Produced a passing touchdown in his fifth-straight road game.
RB D’ANDRE SWIFT - Rushed nine times for 27 yards (3.0 avg.) and one touchdown, and added four receptions for 21 yards (5.3 avg.).
- Produced a touchdown from scrimmage for the third-straight game, becoming the first Lions rookie since RB Mikel Leshoure in 2012 to do so.
- Became the third player in team history to produce at least four rushing touchdowns and one receiving touchdown through their first six career games.
- Has five total touchdowns through his first six career games, joining RBs Jahvid Best (2010) and Billy Sims (1980) as the only Lions running backs to do so.
Head Coach Matt Patricia
MATT PATRICIA: Well, I think we’ll just dive right into it. Honestly just super proud of our players, our coaches. I think everyone did an unbelievable job there, amazing situational football right there. But just every single play, staying in it, staying in the moment and just going out and executing to the best of their ability and a lot of stuff through that entire
game but especially at the end. Just so proud of these guys, our offense, obviously, unbelievable job at the end of the
game, Stafford, Kenny, T.J., the O-line, all those guys that were out there, Danny. That was amazing, great job by them. I thought the defense played really hard. They had some big plays and some great situational plays and special teams, too. Obviously Prater, amazing there at the end. Just really proud of these guys, the way they come to work every day,
what they do every single day in the building, how they approach it and how they handle themselves. Just amazing game; we needed every second and took advantage of it, and just really proud of those guys for that.
All right, we’ll hit a couple questions then we’ll get out of here.
Q. You preach situational football and at the end of the game there that was it right there. Just take me through that drive, and I think that’s the 30th drive Matthew has had one of those. When he goes out on the field with a minute or so left, with how much you guys have drilled that and work on it, what’s your confidence level when you get the ball there?
MATT PATRICIA: Yeah, obviously your confidence level is as high as it can be. You know you’re going to go down and score, and you’re just trying to figure out what are the different situations that are going to come up on the clock so you can try to help him out with that. But honestly, tremendous job. He was unbelievable all the way through the game. We
really had two different called end-of-half two-minute situations. The one before the half, too, was great, very well executed all the way through it, and nobody works harder at that stuff than he does.
When we study and we go through all those calls and those situations, we have great conversation on the field and he’s just phenomenal. It was unbelievable. Just so happy for the guys, and certainly Matthew Stafford, it was great, unreal. Unreal.
Q. When Todd Gurley is running toward the end zone on Atlanta’s final possession, what’s going through your head because it looks like he stutter steps and then he’s maybe in, he’s not in. What’s that emotional two-second swing like because that changes everything?
MATT PATRICIA: Yeah, I mean, it was great situational defense — great situational defense awareness right there. I thought it was perfect. The defense, give the players credit. They executed an outstanding job and very situationally aware right there. It was honestly exactly how you want it, so it was a great job by them.
Q. Kenny Golladay, what does he mean to this offense because it looks like some of the plays he’s making are better than you would even expect could happen.
MATT PATRICIA: Yeah, no, he’s a great player. He makes unbelievable catches every single week and made some amazing ones again today. I love Kenny, everything he brings to the table for us and his way that he competes every single day. Our conversations are great. He’s competitive. It was a great job today by him coming up huge, and we just love it, we absolutely love it.
Q. Because they mentioned it on TV, how bad was his right hand injury?
MATT PATRICIA: No. No. (Smiling.)
Q. They said he was playing with a right hand injury on TV.
MATT PATRICIA: Yeah, I think they got the body part wrong.
Q. Romeo Okwara, I think, kind of quietly had a pretty good season, had a big game today, a couple big plays for you, got you the second opportunity at the end of the fourth quarter. Can you speak to how well he’s played this year and his contributions?
MATT PATRICIA: Yeah, I think Romeo has been unbelievable. Really he and Trey Flowers are two guys that come to work every single day and they make each other better. They really spend a lot of time together talking about the and techniques and how they practice, they stay after practice a lot and they work on individual just fundamental skills and
stuff like that, and I think you can just see the growth that Romeo has had certainly just being out there and playing and getter better every single week, but it’s not a surprise because he works really hard. This guy works extremely hard. He wants to be great, and I think that, like I said, he and Trey do an unbelievable job every single day, and really glad for him, happy for him. Give him all the credit in the world; he made some big plays. It was great.
Q. Could you walk us through that last play, the touchdown pass to Hockenson? And maybe how Stafford and Hockenson freelanced a little bit to get it done?
MATT PATRICIA: Yeah, a little bit different than how it was drawn up. They actually covered the play that was designed very, very well. I think they had the linebacker sitting right there, so they did a great job on that. And after that, again, give credit to Stafford for getting out of there, keeping it going, keeping the play alive. He found a great space to step up into.
T.J. for working away from coverage and getting away from the leverage and then just finishing the play, unbelievable, unbelievable job.
Q. It’s two really good performances in a row from your defense; what kind of momentum — I know we talked about momentum earlier this week, but what kind of feel is that group getting for each other, especially coming against an Atlanta offense that was averaging something like 35 points with Julio in the lineup?
MATT PATRICIA: Yeah, great offense on the other side of the field, absolutely. I think our defensive guys, again, we’ve talked about this before, just continuing to learn to build that trust with each other and continuing to grow and push each other, and I think we took another step with that today and we’ll have to take another step this week. But right now just really proud of the guys for what they did on the field today. Just proud of their effort, and again, just their unwavering
mentality that it didn’t matter, we were just going to go out and do everything we could to win and just stay in there and just hope that the clock didn’t run out before we had a chance to do that, so just really proud of everybody.
Q. The catch with Kenny getting reviewed at the end, just brought back flashbacks to the Golden Tate 10-second runoff that we all saw here. I’m just wondering, we didn’t really get a clear explanation in the press box. You caught it at like 13 seconds, you snapped it three seconds. What was the actual ruling there? Was there a runoff on the review?
MATT PATRICIA: Yeah, so I a little bit confusing on the sideline with the situation because then we had that penalty, too, and I was trying to get a feel for exactly what the penalty was. They had actually stopped it before we killed the last play and before they threw the penalty, so they were reviewing the catch at that point and then the conversation was is this
going to be a 10-second runoff or are we going to be able to snap it and kill it, so that was what they were trying to straighten out after that point.
Q. T.J. obviously had the play at the end. At the start of that drive he had the play where he caught it, didn’t get out of bounds. What’s it say about him that he was able to bounce back from a moment like that and still come up big?
MATT PATRICIA: Yeah, I think just staying focused and staying in the moment. Good catch, got to get out of bounds, and just to come back and forget that play, move on, take the emotion out of it and just try to come back and execute the best of your ability on that last play, and like I — I think Kyle maybe asked or whatever it was, but the last play was a little bit extra, kind of a little bit of an extended-play situation because they actually covered the route really well and then we moved away from it and T.J. got open. Really good job by him and Stafford of really just kind of reading body language there.
Q. I’m sure you won’t get too much into the specific strategy here but you guys did take sort of the Hockenson inadvertent one that kept the clock running but then a couple shots down the middle of the field in that last drive.
Wondering where the line is for you there where you still don’t feel comfortable anymore sort of attacking those spots?
MATT PATRICIA: Yeah, we have that all kind of calculated on a per-play kind of basis of what we think we have and how much field we have. We were pushing it a little bit.
Q. You mentioned the possibility of the penalty right before that. When the guys runs into Kerryon. What is the potential call there?
MATT PATRICIA: Yeah, defensive penalty, yeah.
Q. And then Flowers didn’t start the game. I don’t know if you addressed this earlier, so I apologize, but you used a little bit different rotation up front. Can you explain why that was?
MATT PATRICIA: Again, I don’t really get into the whole who starts in packages and all the rest of it. We’ve got guys we’ve got to play, and Trey Flowers is one of our starters. There’s not a question or conversation there. Just we had — some of it depends on the personnel they put out there, and then when we put the packages together based on guys that
we have available to us, obviously being down Julian Okwara right now and being a little bit thin at a couple positions, we decided to try to — some of the package kind of space out where everybody was to make sure the reps didn’t get too high so we could have everybody at the end of the game.
Q. The letting them score the touchdown, Gurley’s touchdown run there, just the strategy behind that and you hold your breath there for a second when he seemed to realize what you were doing and tried to hold himself up from going in the end zone?
MATT PATRICIA: Yeah, unfortunately I’ve been in that situation before in a very large game and it didn’t work out the way we wanted it to, so I’m glad this one did.
QB Matthew Stafford
On what it felt like to get another game-winning drive:
“It felt great. Close week one but didn’t make it happen and I had another opportunity to this week. I was glad to get it done for the guys. Unbelievable plays all around made by our team. Great plays on defense, shoot, letting them score. I had my helmet on thinking the game was probably going to be over. They [the defense] let them score, gave us a chance and that’s all we needed. Proud of those guys for making that play. Some huge plays in that two-minute drive, or oneminute drive, whatever it was, and obviously [Matt] Prater having to make the longest extra-point ever I feel like was great as well.”
On what he thought the flag was before the game winning touchdown:
“I didn’t know what was going on. When I snapped the ball to spike it the first time, Kerryon [Johnson] was like, sliding behind me. I had no idea what was going on. I thought right there, ‘oh, we apparently fell down or something. I don’t know what happened, ten-second run off, game over.’ All sorts of craziness ensued. I was just happy that they gave us,
rightfully so, another chance. We spiked it and then dialed something up that worked, was able to buy us a little extra time and shoot one to Hock [T.J. Hockenson] for a touchdown.”
On what he saw during the game winning touchdown:
“Yeah, we were sending pretty much everybody into the end zone. Hock [T.J. Hockenson] did a great job of working the end-line. Sometimes I can hit that ball right out of the break as Hock goes in there but 45 [Deion Jones] did a nice job of just squatting in on the end-line. So, I had to buy a little extra time, and Hock just kept working the front end-line, got lost,
and I was able to shoot it to him and he made a nice catch for a touchdown.”
On his trust level with Kenny Golladay:
“Yeah, I thought he made some huge catches for us. There were a couple I didn’t get to see. You know, I throw them and there’s a bunch of guys in front of me or whatever it is and we’re moving the sticks. He had some huge third-down catches for us. There was a big catch on the two-minute drive before the first half to get us three points, he had a big catch there. I thought Marv [Marvin Jones Jr.] played great, Danny [Amendola] played well. We had guys, I don’t know, it felt like everyone had 50 yards at least. Everybody was involved and there are still some plays I wish we could have back but from a pass-game standpoint, it felt really good.”
On how a quarterback buys time in the pocket:
“I can’t walk you through it. It just happens. It’s just one of those things where, it’s different buying time every play. Sometimes you’re able to and sometimes you’re not. I was able to a lot of times this game because our offensive line was staying sticky. That was a defensive front that was playing hard. They were sending a bunch of pressures, a bunch of
unscouted looks to be honest with you. Some stuff that we hadn’t seen on tape, they threw at us and our guys did a really good job of adjusting, playing physical, playing hard and just locking on blocks. Without those guys doing that, there’s nowhere for me to go so, those guys finishing blocks, pushing guys out of lanes, gives me space and I was able to do that it a couple of times.”
On what his level of confidence is when he throws a 50/50 ball to Kenny Golladay:
“I try to put a good ball out there and he’s made some catches. The one down the sideline, going up and getting hit by the safety was a huge play on the third down and long. Obviously caught a quick little fade down our sideline going the other way. Then the play at the end of the game. They [the Falcons] were not let us get over their head. So, I had to get it over the will linebacker who was probably 30-yards deep and underneath the safety who was like 50-yards deep. Kenny was
feeling the same thing I was feeling because I had to cut that ball loose a lot sooner than I wanted to. I can’t hold it forever. I try to throw it to a good spot and he was on the same page as I was. He bent it in front of the safety and made a great catch.”
On whether his confidence level with Kenny Golladay is getting close to his with Calvin Johnson:
“I don’t know. I don’t pay attention to that kind of stuff, I don’t think about that. I’m confident in all the guys on our team and he’s making plays right now. He’s [Golladay] doing a great job of when the ball is in the air, he’s ending up with the majority of them and that’s huge for me, that’s huge for our team. It just bring juice to everybody.”
On how important it was for him to get the ball and go down and win the game:
“I mean it was huge. It just goes back to, I would have had way less fun if anyone had taken a knee and kicked a chipshot field goal and I had no chance to touch the ball. No chance to get the ball back. All you ask for on offense is a chance. We had a minute and whatever it was and then loss some time when Hock [T.J. Hockenson] wasn’t able to get out of bounds at the one. So, we were up against the clock as good as you could be. Guys made plays. I love doing that.
That’s my favorite part about playing the game. I love this game, I love competing and there is no more competitive, pressure-packed situation than whatever it was, first-and-goal from the nine-yard line with no time left. That’s what you live for as a quarterback.”
On what his celebration with T.J. Hockenson was:
“I was just fired up. We were probably just screaming inaudible things at each other, but then I saw Danny [Amendola] quickly after that and was trying to tell Danny to put his helmet back on but he was going bananas and wasn’t going to listen to anything I said. We’ll learn from that, we’ll learn to count better and realize we still need the extra-point to win the
game. So, we’ll make it easier on [Matt] Prater next time.”
On the flag after the PAT:
“Yeah, I saw the flag too and was not happy, and a little scared of what it was. Then I saw this motion [Illegal formation]
and it was illegal formation and I thought, ‘how did we get it?’ Then it was on them [Falcons] and I was all happy again.”
On whether or not Matt Ryan owes him dinner:
“No official wager was made but I mean I’ll bring it up.”
On where his comfort level is when throwing in the middle with limited time:
“Obviously, the defense understands the situation too. There were going to give us chances down the middle of the field and get some chunks. It’s things we work on all the time, plays that we know can get us big yardage if we need it. Danny [Amendola] had a great catch over the middle, I mean skying up to go get that one. Kenny’s [Golladay] was down the middle as well. They were going to play sideline-ish defense and make us try to chip away at it. We obviously make the big play to Kenny that gives us the chance really. If we don’t make that play, we’re probably throwing a couple of Hail Mary’s from the 50 or something. So, that was a huge play for us. It’s all in there. I’m looking at the clock the whole time
trying to figure out how many plays left and how many yards we need, doing all that.”
Pool Reporter Dave Birkett Interview with NFL Senior Vice President of Officiating Al Riveron, Sunday, October 25, 2020
Question: Can you explain what the runoff rule is currently? (with regard to a 2nd-and-10 play from the Atlanta 40 with 0:19 remaining in the fourth quarter that resulted in a 29-yard gain)
Riveron: “The runoff rule only comes into effect, number one, if we change the ruling on the field. And in this situation, we did not change the ruling on the field, so we don’t need to worry about a 10-second runoff. The ruling did not change.”
Question: Is this different than what the ruling was a couple of years ago, in the Atlanta-Detroit Week 3 game in 2017, when there was a 10-second runoff that ended the game after a replay review (a third-and-one pass was ruled a touchdown, the ruling was reversed by replay review, and after the reversal, a 10-second runoff ended the game)? How are these situations different, and why was there no runoff in the game today?
Riveron: “On today’s play, there was no change to the ruling on the field, therefore the 10-second runoff does not come into play.
In a situation like the one in 2017, what happens is the ruling on the field of a touchdown essentially kills the clock. Now what we do is, we rule ultimately that it is not a touchdown, we put the ball back in the field of play. So, number one, we change the ruling and number two, we reverse to a running clock. So now the 10-second runoff comes into play.
Question: Can you explain when the decision was made to stop for a review on today’s play? The Lions were rushing to the line to snap the ball and there was a penalty. Why was there a review instead of that penalty being enforced?
Riveron: “I don’t know what the flag was for, but we stopped the play before the next snap took place. Therefore, whatever happens afterwards, unless we have a dead ball personal foul or something like that, we can say it didn’t happen because we stopped the game prior to the next snap
