NEW ORLEANS -- Overheard in the Detroit Lions' locker room following the team’s 52-38 loss to New Orleans on Sunday, which dropped the Lions to 3-3 heading into the bye.

Quarterback Matthew Stafford on the Saints' nine batted passes (and 16 passes defended overall): I think their guys were just being players. I don’t know if it was a concerted effort coming into the game. I have no idea. I’m not in their meeting rooms. But just got to find a way to get it through. Obviously led to some big plays. Some tips led to some interceptions that we’d love to have back. I’m probably more frustrated at the fumbles more than anything for myself. I got to be better early on, not turn that ball over. Got to find a way to hold on to that ball, both times. Keep us out of that situation where we’re having to dig ourselves out of a giant hole.

Running back Ameer Abdullah on if the Lions playing in shotgun/pistol the whole game limited what they could do: Doesn’t at all. You can call it up a bunch of different ways but ultimately it’s supposed to be ran a certain way and when you have breakdowns early in the game like we had, it’s hard to overcome and we can’t expect to win when we shoot ourselves in the foot like that. Appreciate how the guys fought and how we fought as a team but we got to be better at the beginning.

Defensive tackle Akeem Spence on the Lions starting slow: It’s kind of hard to give you an honest and true answer because it’s just ebbs and flows in a game. I feel like when we started the game we were playing well on the defensive side of the ball, we just, a mistake here and a mistake there, they were able to get a big one, just like plays like that where we got to tackle and get guys on the ground. Just they can’t get going that fast, be up 17 points on us like that.

Offensive lineman Emmett Cleary on if there was any offensive line confusion: No, we just got way behind where they could run all their games and they were really coming off the ball. We got to get better. That's not acceptable to get the quarterback hit that much.

Cleary on the craziness of the game: We competed. We didn't play very well, but we competed the whole way and I think the defense took their licks but they were very resilient and they made some plays in the second half.

Linebacker Jarrad Davis on how to get past this: Honestly, look at myself in the mirror and say, 'Either you're going to get better or you're going to stay, keep getting beat.'

New Orleans Saints defensive lineman Cameron Jordan on when Brian Mihalik replaced Rick Wagner: When you get your mismatch, you’ve gotta take advantage of it, and that’s what I had to do.