LIONS HEAD COACH JIM SCHWARTZ

On the game:

“There’s a couple things. First half there’s really two plays; we had fourth down and goal that we misfire on and then they have a fourth and goal that they score on. Flip those plays and we feel a lot different about the first half. Second half was poor; offense, defense, special teams, it was a poor performance in the second half. It’s disappointing when you get to this point in camp and roster cuts are coming up and guys that are on the bubble, trying to make a good impression, we need to play better than that under those circumstances. There were a lot of guys that didn’t play the best.”

On QB Matthew Stafford’s Injury:

“I think Matt’s going to be fine. He got banged on the hand; his x-rays were negative. Other than that, we’ll just see how it goes. This is his non-throwing hand.”

On CB Chris Houston’s Injury:

“Yeah, he wasn’t able to return to the game. I guess we’ll evaluate it when we get home and hopefully be able to get him back on the field as quick as we can."

On RB Mike Leshoure:

“This was his first action; we got him almost exactly what we wanted to get him. We weren’t going to put him out there for a whole half of football the very first time. He ran aggressively; a couple times where there were guys there he ran physical, took the fight to them. We didn’t run the ball very well at all but I thought Leshoure did some good things for his first time.”

On special teams:

“I think we covered better. We still haven’t punted the ball very well. We creased a couple of turns; there were a couple of things that we did a little bit better.”

On first team defense:

“We didn’t play well enough to keep them out of the end zone. First drive we sort of gave a couple first downs and then held them to a field goal and then the biggest one was getting a stop down on the goal line and we didn’t get that done. We’ve got to do better."

On team growth:

“You won’t play your best every single series that you go out, much less every single game. There were times we didn’t get that done. There were times we moved the ball very well; we were backed up a couple times and got the ball out, got the ball on our first drive offensively, moved down, got a score, that was important. But just the whole body of work, particularly in this game, we didn’t play consistently and we didn’t play as good as we can play. You can go offense, defense, special teams, you can go all three groups, there’s still work to be done; we didn’t play our best.”

LIONS QUARTERBACK MATTHEW STAFFORD

On reaction to injury:

“I think what would have happened in a regular season game is right after it happened I would have run up for x-rays and if they said they were negative I would have come back in the game. It feels okay right now; it feels fine really. Just scary looking down to your hand swelling up by the second.”

On describing injury:

I think his helmet hit me; I think my hand was kind of right in front of my stomach and he put his facemask on it and it just kind of popped a blood vessel or something and started puffing right up.”

On the overall game:

“Obviously I didn’t get to play as much as I wanted to. I felt like we were kind of getting a good rhythm, figuring them out a little bit and really we were staying ahead of the chains, third and manageable, had the one tipped ball on the one third down at the line of scrimmage, but just kind of a back and forth game in the first half. And then they came out in the second half and played a little bit better than we did, which is obviously unfortunate. But I think we were doing fine, moving the ball pretty decent and didn’t get a chance to put it in the end zone.”

On RB Mike Leshoure:

“He’s a physical kid; he’s a big back. I thought he ran the ball well, caught it well out of the backfield. I threw that ball a little bit behind him and he spun with it, and got up the field, got about eight or nine yards on that. So I thought he did well, I was happy for him. They didn’t blitz a lot, played a lot of cover two, but he was good in protection as well.”

On injuries:

“You never want to see that. Hopefully those guys are okay; I don’t really know, I never even saw Kevin [Smith], I was upstairs getting x-rays and never saw Chris either. Hopefully they’ll be okay; we need everybody, obviously.”

On playing in final preseason game/being ready for regular season:

“I feel confident. I know what this offense can do; I know what we need to do to be successful. Whether or not I play (final preseason game) is obviously not my decision and honestly I’ll do whatever they tell me to do. But I think as an offense, we know how to attack and the schemes people throw against us; we’ve just got to go out and execute, really.

LIONS DE WILLIE YOUNG

On his interception:

“I’m doing what I’ve always done, ever since I had my dad on the sideline in Pop Warner. Just being a playmaker. Flying around making plays with my defense, and making the best of my opportunity. It’s four guys to the ball. Wherever the ball is, you’ve got four D-Linemen there. We thrive on that. Thanks to [Kyle] Vanden Bosh and Corey Williams for setting the tempo, setting the standard for us.”

On mood after loss:

“It’s tough, you know? We’ve been really grinding it out through camp. Even though it’s preseason, we still don’t want to take the loss. We don’t take it easy. This was a test run for the starters, first and second string. You go out there and execute, and gap-integrity as far as the front goes, and stuff like that. That’s a great team over there, and that’s a great challenge for us across the board. We’re looking to go back in tomorrow and make corrections and move forward.”

LIONS RB MIKEL LESHOURE

On his NFL debut:

“I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing all week in practice. There’s nothing extra or out of the ordinary that I haven’t been doing. My thing is just to get out there and be mentally sound and play ball.”

On facing NFL defenses:

“This isn’t college anymore. You aren’t going to see wide open gaping holes. It’s going to be grind. There’s going to be two or three (defenders) there. It’s just a thing where you’ve got to keep pounding.”

On any hesitation of injury:

“No, you can’t do that. I don’t go out there thinking about injuries or thinking about getting hurt.”

On something to take away from the game:

“We’re just trying to get better. We understand that we’re not keeping score as far as the win and loss column. We want to get better every week, that’s our whole goal. We felt good, and we felt like we had a decent half. We could have played better in the second half, but there’s a lot of stuff we’re going to learn from this game and pick it up next week.”

LIONS RB KEVIN SMITH

On right ankle sprain:

“I’m always scared because I feel so good. I didn’t want it to be a high ankle sprain, I really didn’t know. It turns out my x-rays were good. I’m feeling good and it’s not as bad as I thought it was. I always try to walk it off, that will let me know if I’m feeling good or not. If I start walking and I buckle then that means something’s wrong, but I felt good.”

On the running game:

"You really can’t tell. This is a preseason game. This is training camp mode for us. I think in the preseason we’ve been doing decently with the running game. I’m not going to judge it on numbers. When you look at film you see some things where I could have made some cuts here, could have done better there. But that’s all it is. You can only judge the running game when you get into the season.”

LIONS OLB JUSTIN DURANT

On the defense:

"We’re not just looking to be okay. We’re looking to be a great defense. We think we have a lot of talent. We have a great offense, but we’re not going to lean on them. We want to stand our own. We don’t want to have a bend-but-don’t-break mentality; we want to have a shut-it-down mentality.”

On injuries:

“It’s tough. We need everybody on this team if we’re going to go to the places we want to go. Some people are just going to have to step up now. Injuries are part of the game and we understand that. Hopefully those guys will get back as soon as possible.”