The Lions completed a season sweep of the Bears on Sunday, but that didn’t stop Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall from coming up with a dismissive take on the team leading the NFC North.
“It’s the little brother that, big brother wants to go out and play with his friends and the little brother is annoying, [saying], ‘Hey, can I go?’” Marshall said, via ESPNChicago.com. “No, you can’t go, Detroit Lions. Sit back. Sit in your little city. Fix your financial problems and all of that, you know. You can’t come with us right now. But right now, they’ve got the best of us. They beat us twice. They swept us. But what matters is when we see them in the playoffs. It’ll be a great show. It’s gonna be tough. But I guarantee it’s not gonna go down like it did the first two games.”
That’s a rather gratuitous shot at the city of Detroit since Detroit’s bankruptcy hasn’t stopped the Lions from owning the Bears this season. Marshall was full of shots at the Lions on Monday, though. He also took a swipe at the way the Lions play on defense during his extended take on Chicago’s divisional rival.
“They’re borderline illegal. I’ll attach my name to it. I’m looking at film today, and it was kind of disgusting to see the D-line go out of their way to knock our quarterbacks down after every single play,” Marshall said. “The ball was gone. They’re pushing them down. They’re hitting them below their knees. It was kind of disgusting. It seemed like it was game planned, but it was borderline. You can’t say it was illegal. But it was definitely one of those things where you say, ‘Hey, we’ve got to pay attention to this.”
The Lions were flagged for roughing the passer twice on the final drive, including one on Willie Young that bought the Bears a second chance at a game-tying two-point conversion. The Bears couldn’t convert it, however, and another way to describe “borderline illegal” play is just calling it legal play. The Bears couldn’t stop the Lions from hitting Jay Cutler and Josh McCown all day on the way to a victory and that should be the biggest concern in Chicago whether or not they get another shot at taking the upper hand in the sibling rivalry.