DETROIT -- Things seen and overheard following the Detroit's 30-23 loss to Minnesota on Thursday, putting the Lions three games behind the Vikings in the NFC North race.

Cornerback Darius Slay on being offside: “I didn’t feel like it because when I looked, I was like, ‘OK, good timing.’ But then I looked back, I saw the yellow flag. I said, ‘Damn, I must be a little too early.’ But it is what it is.”

Cornerback Nevin Lawson, who returned the offside block for a touchdown, on when he found out Slay was offside: "When I was walking back and the other tight end on their team [Blake Bell] was like 'You see that yellow flag?' I was like, 'Aww, man.'"

Lawson on what that feeling was like: "It sucked. I was like, 'Dang, that was our chance right there.' And I knew once they did that, I knew it was over. We had no timeouts left and they were going to knee the ball."

Lawson on if he thought Slay was offside: "Nope. ... But it is what it is. I'm a player, they the refs. They made the call."

Defensive tackle Akeem Spence on why the Lions keep starting slow: "I don't know. I don't know. We just got to start faster. I felt like we started pretty fast. It's just they hit us on them third-down plays, man, you know, and they were just right at the sticks, right at 'em. That's plays our DBs usually make. We just got to tighten up back there and find a way to get [Case] Keenum on the ground, man. I felt like defense, we played well, man. I feel bad about the loss, but I loved our effort and the way the guys played."

Lions head coach Jim Caldwell on the overturned Darren Fells touchdown: "They had confirmed it, so you confirm it, you take your time and you kick it. ... They review every single score, correct? That’s the rule. So they review it, they tell you it’s good, it’s good, so why rush? So our guys were just doing what’s normal. We lined up, getting ready to kick it and all of a sudden, boom. Hold on a minute, we got to take a look at this. That’s how it happened."

Receiver Marvin Jones on his double-coverage touchdown catch where Matthew Stafford was hurt: "It was kind of a surprise play. Caught the defense with 12 men on the field and he (Stafford) made a tremendous throw. I just went up and got it. But I didn’t care about the catch. I immediately ran over (to) him."

Caldwell on not going for two after that touchdown: “We were going to go for two in that situation, we just had some issues that came up. With our quarterback, for one, and a couple other things. We had a couple things that popped up, so we thought it’d be better to kick it through and move on to the next series.”

Receiver Golden Tate on what the Lions have to fix offensively: "Yeah, the good news is there are a lot of things that we can correct, so we don’t have to worry about that. We’ve just got to go out there and do it and execute it. You know, that team is a dang good team, and so are we. But we’ve just got to fix the little problems. You know, thankfully we get some extra days off to get healthy because that was a very physical game, as you can see. So, we’re going to keep our heads up and keep chugging.”

Caldwell on if he views his team as a playoff team: “There’s a lot of football left. There’s a guy that I know who is in this league for a long time, he said if you’re around .500 little bit before when you’re sitting down for your Thanksgiving meal, you’ve still got a chance. I’ve experienced it. We were 6-6 at one point and we had to win the last four. We won the last four. ... Don’t count us out just yet. We’ve got a lot of football yet to play, and you don’t know what’s going to happen. There’s other games that are being played too. That’s a big thing. I know the media will paint it like the sky is falling, but the sky is not falling for us. We’ve got to get ourselves a little bit better and keep moving forward.”