It struck a lot of people as odd that the Lions tried a quarterback sneak on fourth-and-one from the Titans’ 7 in overtime against the Titans when they could have tied the game with a Jason Hanson field goal.
There were plenty of Lions included in that group. Detroit was planning to try to draw the Titans offside and then turn to Hanson if that failed. Center Dominic Raiola misread a message from quarterback Shaun Hill, though.
“We were trying to get up on the ball and run a play that wasn’t supposed to be snapped,” Raiola said, via Chris McCoskey of the Detroit News. “I totally read Shaun’s lips the wrong way. I ran a fullback dive. It was just mis-execution on my part. I thought it was a dive.”
Raiola didn’t speak to reporters after the 44-41 loss, but did speak to them on Monday and said he’d take all the blame anyone cared to drop on his shoulders. He made no attempt to hide how bad he felt about his mistake.
“Still hurts,” Raiola said. “That was a big play. I know people say that’s not the play that lost us the game, but that is so cliche. I take my job pretty serious and to end a game like that just sucks. But there is nothing I can do about it now.”
It’s true that there were plenty of reasons why the Lions lost on Sunday, but it’s likely equally true that none of them will make Raiola feel any better.