Lions CB Darius Slay: 'They cheated me' on offsides call on blocked FG

Replays showed otherwise, but Detroit Lions cornerback Darius Slay insisted after Thursday's 30-23 loss to the Minnesota Vikings he wasn't offsides when he blocked a late field-goal attempt that Nevin Lawson returned for a touchdown.

"I wasn’t," Slay said on his way out of the locker room. "I don’t feel like I was. They cheated me."

Slay came off left end to block Kai Forbath's 25-yard field-goal try with just over a minute to play and the Lions trailing by seven points.

The ball bounced up and into the arms of Lawson, who returned it 77 yards down the Lions sideline for a touchdown.

But Slay appeared to take a full step across the line of scrimmage, past wing blocker Kyle Rudolph, before the ball was snapped.

Lawson, who fell to his knees in the end zone thinking he had scored the tying touchdown to finish a Lions comeback, said he didn't know a flag had been thrown on the play until Minnesota's Blake Bell told him.

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The penalty nullified the touchdown and gave the Vikings a first down with 1:02 on the clock.

"When I was walking back and the other tight end on their team was like, 'You see that yellow flag?' I was like, 'Oh man,'" Lawson said. "It sucked. I was like, 'Dang, that was our chance right there.' And once they did that, I knew it was over because we had no timeouts left. I knew they was going to (run out the clock)."

Lawson said he didn't see a replay of block, but he didn't think Slay was offsides in real time.

"It is what it is," Lawson said. "I’m a player, they the refs. They made he call."

Injury update

The Lions lost two starters to injury Thursday as both center Travis Swanson (knee) and safety Tavon Wilson (shoulder) left the game.

Wilson has been dealing with a left shoulder injury off and on all year, and finally came out of a red no-contact jersey for the injury at practice last week. He hurt his arm trying to break up a deep pass to Stefon Diggs in the third quarter.

Swanson injured his knee about two minutes later. Graham Glasgow moved from left guard to center, and Corey Robinson took Glasgow's place at guard.

Lions coach Jim Caldwell said he did not know the extent of either injury immediately after the game.

Contact Dave Birkett: dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

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