It was arguably the play of the year, but Jim Caldwell doesn't want to talk about it.
The Lions coach on Monday had a prime opportunity to put a lid on Thursday night's Aaron RodgersHail Mary that handed Green Bay a 27-23 win over hapless Detroit.Â
"Now some of you will ask me some questions from last Thursday," Caldwell told reporters, per ESPN.com's Michael Rothstein. "I'm not going back there. I'm going that way, forward focus. And it might not be appeasing to you, appealing to you but the fact is that you have to get focused in on St. Louis in a hurry."
That didn't stop reporters, though, from asking about Detroit's confused approach on a play that saw Rodgers loft the ball 61 yards through the air to tight end Richard Rodgers with the game clock at zero.
To be fair, Caldwell already explained last week that he expected another lateral play, not unlike the snap that resulted in a facemask penalty on the previous down. That thinking left Detroit to rush just three men -- none of them Ezekiel Ansah -- allowing Rodgers to dance about before heaving it skyward.
Why, coach, why?
"Just like I mentioned to you a little earlier, you're not going to be happy with the fact that we're not going to tell you exactly what all our conversations were," Caldwell said Monday. "What we did do, what we didn't do, what we should have done better, all those kinds of things. But we go through them, every single aspect."
Caldwell's reserved approach won't score him points inside the building, but he already knows his time in Detroit is likely up. Still, fans and reporters want to know what led Caldwell to assume that Rodgers -- a strong-armed, All-Pro passer -- would opt for another lateral over gunning the ball downfield.
"You know, you can look at it a thousand different ways," Caldwell said. "It's when it doesn't work, obviously, you just pick the opposite side, like, 'Hey, they should have done this, should have done that.' That's for you to say. For us to agonize over, you know what I mean."
Lions fans get the agony part.
