By Michael Stets
Former Lions safety Glover Quin, who recently retired after playing his last six seasons in Detroit, joined Dan Miller and Lomas Brown in the Lions Radio booth during the third quarter of Detroit’s 30-23 loss to the Houston Texans on Saturday night.
Quin, who signed with the Lions in 2013 after playing his first four NFL seasons with the Texans, spoke with Miller and Brown about life after football and spending time with his family, among other topics. But perhaps the most interesting part of their conversation, was when Brown asked Quin his opinion on the NFL’s new pass interference replay rule, which allows teams to challenge for pass interference even if a penalty for that infraction isn’t called by a referee on the play.
“I don’t really like it,” Quin said. “I think a lot of times the calls are – there judgement calls. I know we make a big deal about the play that happened in the playoffs with the Saints and the Rams. That’s an obvious call. The thing about it, when you slow a play down it looks different.”
Brown asked Quin if he thinks the new rule is an overreaction to the now infamous play that occurred in last year’s NFC Championship game where Los Angeles Rams’ cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman hit New Orleans Saints’ and now Detroit Lions’ receiver Tommylee Lewis in what should’ve resulted in a pass interference penalty, but one was not called.
“I think it’s a little overreaction to what happened,” said Quin. “The official made a bad call. He didn’t make a call at all. It’s an unfortunate situation. Just so happened it was to go to the Super Bowl, I think, or one of those games. So, obviously, it’s a sore spot, but to sit back and say ‘OK, we are going to challenge every pass interference.’ You can challenge it. The ones that are going to get challenged are going to come on those deep balls now. You are going to start seeing it on third and fourth down, third down now where they are throwing the ball up hoping they can get 40, 50 yards. And I think those are the two that we seen tonight.”
There were two challenges in Saturday’s game involving pass interference. The first came in the opening quarter after a deep pass from Texan’s quarterback Joe Webb III to receiver Tyron Johnson fell incomplete. Texans’ head coach Bill O’Brien challenged that pass interference was committed, but the call on the field was upheld. The second challenge, this one from Lions’ head coach Matt Patricia, came in the second quarter after Lions’ cornerback Amari Oruwariye was called for pass interference on a deep pass from Webb III to Texan’s receiver Steven Mitchell. Patricia challenged that it was not pass interference, but that call was also upheld.
“I don’t like it,” Quin concluded.
You can listen to the full Glover Quin interview with Miller and Brown below: