Jets, Lions Exchange Heated Barbs After Hard-Fought New York Victory

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Jets, Lions Exchange Heated Barbs After Hard-Fought New York Victory


By Joe Lapointe

DETROIT --- Bart Scott, the New York Jets' linebacker, grew up in a hard-knocks neighborhood in the southeastern corner of Detroit, and he knows a bit about rough stuff on the football field and on the streets.

But after the Jets beat the Lions, 23-20 in overtime Sunday at Ford Field, Scott said his hosts were nasty even by the standards of football and the Motor City.

"They are the dirtiest team I've played against,'' Scott said. "Hitting after plays. Taking knees out. Diving at people's knees. Trying to spear people in the back."

Scott said the Lions' behavior had nothing to do with effort and heart for a team that, like its city, is trying to come back from a depressed era.

"That's trying to be a fake tough guy,'' Scott said. "If that's the case, put us all in a cage and let us go see who comes out on top. Man, I hope they schedule us next year.''

Both teams had 11 penalties in a rugged game that saw the Lions squander a 10-point lead in the final three minutes of regulation time. The Lions also suffered two critical injuries to two key players and from the self-inflicted damage of poor clock management and gratuitous fouls.

Among those hurt: Lions' quarterback Matthew Stafford, who re-injured his throwing shoulder and had to leave the game,; and Detroit kicker Jason Hanson, whose kicking leg was hurt, forcing him to sit out a key play and finish the game in diminished condition.

The result left the Jets 6-2 and the Lions 2-6. The Lions are better than they were in 2008, when they finished 0-16, and in 2009, when they finished 2-14. But Sunday's loss was a brutal one for Detroit -- and center Dominic Raiola, a 10-year veteran, offered a decade of perspective.

"This is the worst loss ever in my 10 years,'' he said. "That one hurt. It's hard to swallow. This is worse than getting blown out. It adds insult to injury.''

Speaking of insults, Raiola was asked to respond to Scott's accusations of dirty play.

"This is the worst loss ever in my 10 years. That one hurt. It's hard to swallow. This is worse than getting blown out. It adds insult to injury."
-- Lions center Dominic Raiola​

"Bart Scott talks too much,'' Raiola said. "He needs to shut up. Him and Jason Taylor talk too much. They're just b**ching to the refs all game. It wasn't that we're playing dirty. Shut up and play football.''

One of the game's pivotal moments involved a personal foul against Detroit. With the Jets down by three points and possessing no timeouts in the final minute of regulation, LaDainian Tomlinson of New York took a pass from quarterback Mark Sanchez.

After a gain of 13 yards, Tomlinson was forced out of bounds at the Detroit 43. But Lions' linebacker Julian Peterson kept chasing him and knocked him over, resulting in a 15-yard penalty that Peterson thought was undeserved because Tomlinson embellished it.

"He deserves an Oscar on that one,'' Peterson said. "Maybe I should have just pushed him instead of putting my shoulder to him. They probably wouldn't have made the call.''

The call gave the Jets the ball at the 28, in field-goal range. They gained 10 more yards before Nick Folk kicked a 36-yard field goal to tie the score as time expired. The Jets won the overtime coin flip, took the kickoff and drove to the Lions' 12, before Folk kicked a 30-yard field goal to win it.

Even that play ended with a Lions' personal foul; the Jets declined the penalty. "Obviously, we feel fortunate we got the win -- but we don't care!'' said Jets' coach Rex Ryan.

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He joked about how he let Sanchez run a quick-tempo offense in the final minutes to catch up. "I'm a ground-and-pound guy and all that kind of jazz,'' Ryan said with a smile. "There might have been a little panic on my part.''

There also might have been some nervousness on the other sideline after Lions' coach Jim Schwartz had to replace the injured Stafford with Drew Stanton.

With two minutes left, on third-and-6 at the Detroit 38, Schwartz had Stanton throw a pass -- it fell incomplete -- instead of calling a running play that would have allowed the Lions to run time off the clock.

"Yeah, that's my fault,'' Schwartz said. "We need to keep that clock running. I did a poor job of communicating.''

Despite all this, the Jets would have needed a touchdown to win -- not a field goal to tie -- if Hanson had not been injured in the third quarter when Trevor Pryce of the Jets ran into his knee on a field-goal attempt.

Pryce was penalized, but Hanson was unable to attempt an extra point after a 1-yard touchdown run by Stafford. The backup kicker was defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh, a rookie who hit the right upright to leave the score 13-10 for the Lions instead of 14-10.

Schwartz also blamed himself for that. "Probably should have called a timeout, given him time to get ready,'' Schwartz said.

In one of the game's primary subplots, Suh was held without a sack. In another, New York cornerback Darrelle Revis and his fellow defensive backs held Detroit's star wide receiver Calvin Johnson to one catch for 13 yards.

Sanchez, who completed 22 of 39 pass attempts for 336 yards, said he and his teammates became energized on the final two drives of the fourth quarter, when they stopped running the ball and mostly passed after hurrying to the line of scrimmage.

"We went into our full two-minute attack,'' Sanchez said. "I'm running over to the sideline saying 'These guys can't stop us. Let's keep going, keep going. Why start running again? We got them on their heels.' It was obvious. We took over the game at the end and took this win.''