After Sunday’s heartbreaking loss to the Bears, which if the vague and uncodified “second act” exception had been applied may have been a win, Lions coach Jim Schwartz took the high road.
So the folks from 97.1 the Ticket in Detroit wisely asked Schwartz not about his own views on the matter, but about the views of his players.
“I mean I leave what goes on in our locker room in our locker room,” Schwartz said, via SportsRadioInterviews.com. “But everybody knows that it was a catch. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at that and say it was a catch. Now, it’s also ruled an incompletion because of the rule. I think if 100 people look at it, 100 people say, ‘Yeah, Calvin [Johnson] caught that ball.’ Calvin made a great play on that play. Shaun [Hill] made a great throw, Calvin made a great play. That stands. There’s no way that you can take that away from him other than a technicality in the rulebook.”
And there it is. Schwartz has managed to have it both ways. Everyone regards him as a good sport because of the things he said immediately after the game, and now he has had a chance to vent, even if he did so by saying what he said under the guise of what his players feel.