Brandon Marshall admitted Detroit "got the best of us" by completing a two-game sweep of the Bears on Sunday, but the receiver also called the Lions "borderline illegal," in addition to calling the franchise Chicago's "little brother."
"It's the little brother that kind of grew up a little bit," Marshall joked Monday while filling in as a host on "The Jay Cutler Show" on ESPN 1000. "He may be a little taller than the big brother. He's not stronger. He's not better than the big brother at anything. But that one day, he just says, 'I'm fed up. I'm done. I'm gonna punch my brother in the face.'"
Apparently, that's what the Lions did Sunday during a 21-19 win at Soldier Field to sweep the season series against Chicago for the first time since 2007. Given some of the past transgressions of the Lions, the suggestion was made that Detroit could be the little brother who has a tendency to get into trouble.
"It's the little brother that, big brother wants to go out and play with his friends and the little brother is annoying, [saying], 'Hey, can I go?'" Marshall said. "No, you can't go, Detroit Lions. Sit back. Sit in your little city. Fix your financial problems and all of that, you know. You can't come with us right now. But right now, they've got the best of us. They beat us twice. They swept us. But what matters is when we see them in the playoffs. It'll be a great show. It's gonna be tough. But I guarantee it's not gonna go down like it did the first two games."
Marshall at one point was asked whether the Lions were a dirty team, and the receiver said he noticed instances during Monday's film session in which that case could be made.
"They're borderline illegal. I'll attach my name to it. I'm looking at film today, and it was kind of disgusting to see the D-line go out of their way to knock our quarterbacks down after every single play," Marshall said. "The ball was gone. They're pushing them down. They're hitting them below their knees. It was kind of disgusting. It seemed like it was game planned, but it was borderline. You can't say it was illegal. But it was definitely one of those things where you say, 'Hey, we've got to pay attention to this.'"
Bears quarterbacks Cutler and Josh McCown suffered a combined two sacks, and each took several shots from Detroit's defensive linemen while delivering passes.
Lions defensive end Willie Young was flagged for a 15-yard face mask on a sack of Cutler for a 9-yard loss by Ndamukong Suh. Young also was flagged for roughing the passer for a hit on McCown with 47 seconds left to play, which allowed the Bears a second chance at their two-point conversion attempt that could have tied the game.
Nick Fairley also was flagged for unnecessary roughness for a hit on McCown.
"Jay got hit more times this week than he's gotten hit in the past -- and probably got hit less than any team that's played the Lions," Bears coach Marc Trestman said. "They get hits more than anybody, of any team we faced, they've done as good a job of rushing the passer. And we didn't do a good enough job. [Cutler] got hit three or four times hard, and then he got pushed down four or five times. We're disappointed we couldn't do a better job in that area."