Opening statement: “Credit to the Bills. They came out ready to play, and we expected that after their tough loss on the West Coast. Unfortunately, we couldn’t match their intensity. I told the team that the responsibility falls on me—I didn’t have them fully prepared for a game like this. We’ve had better performances from several players, so that’s on me. While I thought the effort was there, we made too many mistakes and gave them opportunities. We know they’re a great team, and we gave them some free points. It’s a tough loss, but at least now we know where we stand against one of the AFC’s top teams. We’ll learn from this and move on because we still have to win next week.”
On the disappointing defensive performance: “It’s frustrating. I thought we would perform better. There are some plays where they just make a good play, and I can live with that, but when you make self-inflicted mistakes, that’s the most frustrating part. We gave them opportunities they didn’t have to earn, and that’s on us.”
On injuries impacting the defense: “No, I’m not using that as an excuse. We should have been better, even with the injuries. We knew the Bills were good, but their sense of urgency was higher than ours today.”
On Bills QB Josh Allen escaping the pocket: “Yeah, he got us a few times. We knew we had to contain him, but that takes a lot of discipline up front. On certain downs, we had to go after him, but we couldn’t get to him. We knew he would be a challenge, and we didn’t handle it as well as we hoped. It didn’t help that we couldn’t capitalize on offense either. There were times when we made stops, but couldn’t turn them into points, and vice versa. We didn’t complement each other well as a team.”
On whether it was Allen’s brilliance or the Lions’ defensive flaws: “I think we just didn’t play at the level we needed to. That’s on me—I didn’t get the team ready to go. You can’t afford to be anything less than perfect against a team like Buffalo, or any of the top teams in the league. We weren’t good enough today.”
On the decision to attempt an onside kick: “I thought it was a good chance to get the ball back. Jake Bates had a great kick, but unfortunately, it didn’t bounce our way, and Mack Hollins made a great play. In hindsight, after they took it down to the 3-yard line, I wish we hadn’t attempted it, but it is what it is.”
On running back David Montgomery’s status: “He got banged up a bit. We only ran the ball 15 times, and we couldn’t get the run game going, which was something we wanted to focus on. It’s been two weeks now where we haven’t been able to get the ground game going, and that’s frustrating because we know we’re better than that. When we got into a shootout, it became harder to stick with the run game. Jared Goff played at an extremely high level, but asking a quarterback to throw 59 times is a lot.”
On the injury status of cornerback Khalil Dorsey: “He’s likely out for the season. It’s a tough injury, similar to Aidan Hutchinson’s injury.”
On defensive lineman Alim McNeill and cornerback Carlton Davis III: “We’ll know more tomorrow, but I’m not optimistic about either one of them.”
On playoff readiness after this loss: “I don’t think about it in terms of the playoffs right now. We weren’t prepared to play today, and that’s what matters most. We didn’t do enough to win. We need to be more focused and locked in moving forward. The responsibility starts with me—I have to do a better job of getting the team ready. There are no excuses for this loss. It’s frustrating for everyone, but we can’t dwell on it. We need to bounce back and be ready for Chicago next week.”