Bears' Moore finds Stafford's slam, his own ejection a sham

'That's how the league is. It's a quarterback league'

November 13, 2011|By Fred Mitchell, Chicago Tribune reporter

After Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford threw one of his four interceptions Sunday and Tim Jennings sped down the field, Stafford took out his frustrations on Bears defensive back D.J. Moore.

"I'm trying to block him and he kind of grabs me by the back of my helmet and tried to slam me down," Moore said after a 37-13 Bears victory at Soldier Field. "It kind of hurt a little bit, so when I got up I felt like, 'You can't just go out of your way to try to hurt me when you're frustrated. I understand how the game is going, but you can't just let stuff like that go on.'"

A fight ensued among several players from both teams in front of the Lions' bench, and Moore was ejected for retaliating.

"(Moore) kind of blocked me and I was just trying to get him off of me the best I knew how," Stafford said. "I guess he didn't like the way I did it and he wanted to ask me about it."

Lions coach Jim Schwartz defended his quarterback. "Did Matt get penalized? No, Matt didn't get penalized."

Moore said his ejection was more frustrating after the officials reviewed the play and saw that Stafford initiated the melee.

"You went back and reviewed the play and you (saw) what he did, but you still eject me and you still leave (Stafford) in, not giving him anything at all," Moore said. "That's kind of tough. But that's how the league is. It's a quarterback league."

Bears coach Lovie Smith stopped short of blaming the officials for Moore's ejection.

"I think I saw what happened. But the league, of course, will look at it," Smith said. "It's never good when you get thrown out of the game and you can't help your football team. That's not good, period. As far as D.J. is concerned, I know, I mean, a lot of times you catch the second guy. And that's what happened. It could have put us in a bind if we hadn't been so far out ahead."

Several of Moore's teammates applauded his willingness to defend himself.

"That was a bad call, I don't know why he got thrown out of the game," Brian Urlacher said.

"I just ran out on the field to see if D.J. was all right, because he had a pretty hard hit on the sideline," defensive tackle Anthony Adams said. "I just wanted to make sure he wasn't getting in that melee because he's like 180 pounds and he was close to that (Detroit) sideline where a lot of their offensive linemen were. So I went and made sure he wasn't in the skirmish.

"It was an SEC battle out there. Georgia (Stafford) threw the interception and then Georgia tried to tackle him and Vanderbilt (Moore) came in."

Quarterback Jay Cutler, who earlier had his helmet ripped off by Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh with no penalty called and was the target of a roughing the passer call against Nick Fairley, could appreciate Moore's willingness to put a stop to the nonsense.

"You don't want to tell everyone to do that, but at a certain point, I think this team has to draw the line," Cutler said. "If a team's going to cross that (line), we're going to have to retaliate and we're going to stand up for ourselves.

"Our offensive line, defensive line … now the secondary, everyone. We're coming together as a team and that's a good sign of it."