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HEAD COACH JIM SCHWARTZ

Opening statement

"I think time of possession played a big part in this game. Cincinnati has done a great job all year of controlling the clock and they basically had an advantage of one series per game with about a three-minute advantage over the course of the year. I think in this game it was probably closer to seven. They converted third downs, we didn't. They made positive plays.

"Even if their stats don't look real good from a rushing standpoint, they were able to make positive plays and keep the chains moving. I think those are the differences in the game. We got off to a lead and then sort of gave that back on a little bit of a freak play, getting the ball tipped and falling into the hands of a guy and all of a sudden it's seven to seven. Guys didn't stop fighting; they fought right until the end. I'm proud of our effort; not proud of the loss, but I'm proud of our effort."

On not being able to take advantage of opportunities

"I don't necessarily agree with that. We took advantage of opportunities early in the game, they made a play that got them back in the game on sort of a freak play, a tipped ball that happened to fall right to their guy and got back in the game. Our guys fought, they didn't give up, and we didn't' play well, we made some mistakes; but I'm proud of the effort the guys had today. "

On WR Calvin Johnson's effort late in the game

"That's what he does - gets balls like that - and it gave us a chance. We needed to get a two-point conversion there to be down one score and then get the onside kick, but we weren't conceding anything. Daunte (Culpepper) made a nice throw, put it up to him, he came down with it, and we did a good job running the ball in right there. "

On how bad QB Matthew Stafford is

"He banged that same shoulder. It's probably too early to tell, but I don't anticipate it being anything other than banging the same sore shoulder. I don't think it's any worse than that. "

On if there was a risk with Stafford being out there

"No more than last week. I mean, it was going to be a situation where there's pain. It's an injury that our doctor's pinned as ëcouldn't be made worse.' But we'll make sure that it's just that; that it's not a different injury or stuff like that. I mean, obviously, he went through all the tests and everything. We got the quarterback hit way too often today and there were issues, No. 1, with the offensive line, but also running backs and pick-ups and things like that and that's one thing that we can't allow to keep happening.

"There's going to be some times where we get hit trying to make a big play down the field, but there were other times we got hit, really, for no reason. There's risk-reward in some of those hold-the-ball-for-a-long-time to get those balls down to Calvin deep down the field. When we got hit it wasn't those cases. "

On if he would consider sitting Stafford

"We'll cross that bridge if we get there. But I'd never really want to speak in definitives. It really depends. I think our leading indicator with all injuries and how we judge all injuries is if there's a chance that somebody's going to get hurt worse. Ernie Sims was inactive today; mainly because it was a hamstring and it was a cold day and there was a chance that if he went out there and really got it then he'd be out for the rest of the season. So we decided that he was going to be inactive today; we're going to make that decision on a lot of guys - not just the quarterback. "

On if Stafford's performance is hampered by his injury

"Yeah, I mean, it hurts when he gets hit. It's our job not to get him hit. As far as causing him to make bad throws or something like that - no. "

On if WR Derrick Williams was taken out of the game because of the alignment penalty

"Well, he's our fourth receiver and we generally don't use four wide receiver sets. He was in there because Calvin came out on the play before; he got sort of shaken up on the sideline and he went out on the field in that package at the last minute. That was an inexcusable error, lining up there. That would have kept the drive alive; we get an illegal contact, that's an automatic first down; that keeps that drive alive.

"It's in their territory, it's still early in the game, we have a chance to get in scoring position. There were numerous penalties that hurt us today. Two times we touched the ball on punt when we were the first guy out of bounds. One time is too many there and two times is inexcusable. That player was replaced. We had other penalties and things like that; we didn't play smart, like I said. We played tough, we played hard, we didn't play smart. "

On RB Kevin Smith's performance

"I thought he ran very hard today. I thought he ran the football the way we know he can run it. He picked up yards on his own, he ran physical, he didn't go down easily; I thought that was a very bright spot today. "

On if P Nick Harris hurt his knee prior to this game

"No, he injured it on the first punt when he had to make the tackle. They ended up bracing it up after that for his next punt, which he didn't do very well on. But it's something that didn't allow him to finish ... I mean, it didn't stop him from finishing the game, but it's something we'll have to look at. "

On if he saw signs of progress from his team

"No, we lost. Progress is winning games, it's not doing anything else. We need to win; we need to win on the road - it's been way too long since we've won on the road. We need to find a way to get that done."

On the final offensive possession in the first half

"We ran the ball. We were backed up; we ran the ball a couple times early - we ended up getting past the two-minute warning. They were taking timeouts and then we picked up the first down and we were trying to score. Believe me, at the end of that first half, we're not sitting there going to be conservative and say we'll run to keep the time off. I mean, I called a timeout when we sacked the quarterback for the sole reason to get them stopped, get the ball back to our offense and score points. We're not going into the game to keep it close, we're not going into the game to be conservative. We're going to do our best in that situation and that was a situation that ended up costing us three points, but I wouldn't change the way we did it. "

On if he considered not going for the 55-yard field goal

"That was a gray area right there. That was right at the max ... obviously, right at the max. The wind was going in that direction a little bit and we have a lot of confidence in Jason (Hanson) - Jason's proven himself over the years and thought we had a good chance to get points there. But, yeah, that was a consideration, but decided on the field goal. "

QB MATTHEW STAFFORD

On how it felt when he went down

"(It) felt about the same as it did in Cleveland. I don't think I've injured it any worse or anything like that, it hit me just right."

On whether he feels that he's risking anything by playing with a shoulder injury

"No, I don't think so. It's just a pain management deal."

On whether he thinks he'll play next week

"I don't know. We'll see. I need to get back to Detroit and kind of look at it again and see what the doctors think."

On his play

"It started out pretty good. I threw that touchdown to Calvin (Johnson) and then the interception that got run back for a touchdown, got it to a heck of a player. Itried to make a screen pass. I played against that guy in college and he always does that, puts the brakes on jumps. He's a good player when it comes to that. Then the other one was a two man, trying to shoot a ball down the field to the tight end on a back shoulder and we just weren't on the same page. We weren't as good as we need to be on third down, they did a good job of holding us on third down, putting some pressure on me."

On whether the pain wears on him

"Obviously everyone wants to be healthy, but I dare you to find someone that feels great right now at this point of the season. It's one of those things that you have to deal with. It's a tough season and it's a long one. You have to just come ready to work everyday."

C DOMINIC RAIOLA

On only having the ball for 2:38 in the third quarter

"I'm not worried about when we get the ball or how long we get the ball for, all I know is that when we get the ball, we have to do something with the ball and we don't do that. Three-and-out, you can't go three-and-out. You can't win like that. Defense... I don't care for how long they're on the field. When we're on the field our job is to produce and we didn't produce enough and that's a problem"

On the run game today and whether there was anything they did differently

"Nope. Just blocking. I mean, we thought we could make some progress in the run game. We had a couple that were stopped for no gain. I don't know if we had any for losses; but then at the same time he (Kevin Smith) got out on the field and when we get it called we have to make it work. I don't know. It's just frustrating going through the same thing every week."

On whether he sees signs of improvement

"Yeah. I know it's going to be better. I trust guys in this locker room. I trust the staff that it is going to get better. It's not going to be the same. That all sounds good, but there's got to be more of a sense of urgency on the field from each man."

On whether he doesn't feel that there is a sense of urgency

"There is. There is, but when it's time to make plays, we have to make those plays when we get the ball for how ever long. I didn't even know the time of possession until Tony just brought it up; but it doesn't matter if we get the ball for two minutes or 10 minutes, we have to get points every time we touch the ball - that's our job, and we didn't do that."

WR CALVIN JOHNSON

On what the Bengals did defensively to stop the Lions' offense

"It's pretty obvious (that) we didn't capitalize on those opportunities. The defense got us two turnovers with great field position and we couldn't punch it in, we couldn't get any points off of it. It's very frustrating. We jumped out there early and really couldn't bring nothing else with that. It's frustrating but we've got to keep fighting. "

On the progress that the team has made

"There's a bunch of positive things that we've done this season but we just haven't been able to do all those things in the same game. If we get everybody on the same page we'll be alright. "

On the Lions' goals for the last four games of the season

"I can't really call any besides to win. When we win good things happen to everybody and we'll achieve the goals that we want to achieve. I can't call out anything else besides getting a 'W'. "

On what positives came out of this game

"We got turnovers on defense, we had a good punt return, good kickoff returns, some good special teams work and then we scored twice on offense. Once late, but it's not good enough. We've got to put up more for the team, but good things we take out of this game is the turnovers. We were able to get turnovers on defense and we've just got to capitalize on it on offense. "

CB WILLIAM JAMES

On the defense's physical play against the Bengals' offense

"We wanted to come in this game and establish a physical presence. Our defense has always prided itself on being physical, so knowing that they had (Chad) Ochocinco talking a lot during the week, (Louis)  Delmas, Marvin (White) and myself and Phil (Buchanon) all decided that we were going to let them have a litte something. "

On the defensive backs supporting the run defense

"In this defense the corners are asked to cover and support on the run. You know that when they put some formations out there this is the play that you're going to have to support. That happened a couple of times today and I think the corners did a good job coming up. "

On holding tough then getting beat by big plays

"The attitude is to never quit, and to keep fighting and we just broke it down on sight. We've had a tough season, there's big plays that killed us and it comes from communication or whatever you want to call it. We have guys rotating in and out of the secondary, guys being injured in the front, so we want to come out every week and still fight and still give our best effort. We're going to fight until the end of the season. "

S LOUIS DELMAS

On WR Chad Ochocinco

"That's Chad, you know. After he makes a play he's going to be chattery, but it was all good. It wasn't like he came at me as agressive. It was, 'Great job out there. Keep your head up. Lets keep this game exciting.' When he got in the end zone, he deserved it. He did his little dance or whatever. But he deserved what he got."

On whether he feels that these losses are taking a toll on guys mentally

"Actually, not at all. This defense, this team in general, are a bunch of warriors. We're not going to give up. We're going to fight all four quarters as hard as we can and finish out this season strong."

On what Ochocinco said to him after he made a big hit

"He said, 'Good hit,' He didn't see me coming, but good hit and keep running to the ball like I do."

On whether QB Matthew Stafford has anything to prove by playing through pain

"Not at all. He proved everything to everybody during OTA's and camp and that's why he's our guy right now. Being that he might be out next week, it's no biggie. We have two great quarterbacks: Daunte Culpepper and Stafford. If one goes down it's hardly any differnet in replacement of the other quarterback. If he doesn't play next week, we're very confident in Culpepper and we know that he he'll get the job done."