Free agent Fairley likes Detroit, wants to stay

Nick Fairley wants to stay in Detroit.

"I want it to be," the defensive tackle said Monday. "I love Detroit, to be honest. I feel the city, the people in it. I love the atmosphere of basically the hard work that they bring. I'm just all work and that's definitely the vibe I get from the city and I like it."

Even after riding the roller coaster over four seasons with the Lions, where he has had to answer questions about his weight and work ethic, Fairley apparently doesn't want to get off and find another ride. Fairley, an unrestricted free agent after the Lions balked at picking up his fifth-year option, has grown comfortable with the coaches and the organization and he spoke earnestly Monday about wanting to stay in Detroit.

"Yeah, being around four years," he said, "being able to know the coaches, basically getting to know the coach, getting to know the organization, the owners and everybody, I feel great around here. I love it. I know the Ford family real good. I speak to them every time I see them. I love vibe, basically. I love the vibe."

Fairley missed the final nine games, including Sunday's 24-20 wild-card playoff loss at Dallas, with a knee injury that he said won't require surgery.

"I just have to keep rehabbing," he said. "Right now it's the strongest it was. It was a minor strain. I just needed to tighten it up. It tightened up pretty good. But to the docs it wasn't tight enough to go out there yesterday."

Fairley said he definitely would have played this week in Seattle if the Lions had advanced. He was close enough Sunday in Dallas that he pleaded his case to doctors to let him play.

"Of course," he said. "I wanted to be out there yesterday with the guys going to war. It didn't happen. It was on the docs, like I said, earlier in the week. It wasn't on me. They made a business decision and it's just something we've got to deal with.

"It sucked. The whole time just sitting. Even when we were up, I was still like, 'I want to be out there, I want to be out there just helping the guys.' We fell short. We've just got to work harder this offseason and just keep working hard."

Fairley said he would continue to work with his personal chef to maintain his target weight of 290 to 300 pounds.

"Working out and just being able to stay in shape and all that, it'll be easy," he said. "It's easier to maintain it than it is to get control of it."

AUSTIN INTERVIEWS: According to NFL.com, defensive coordinator Teryl Austin will have his first head coaching interview with the Atlanta Falcons on Wednesday and with the San Francisco 49ers on Thursday.

"He has all of the qualities that you're looking for," coach Jim Caldwell said. "I think without question, he has two of the things I think for dynamic leadership that you're looking at are precepts and percepts.

"One, the precepts being the technical knowledge and being able to understand exactly what you're doing in your chosen profession. He's excellent at that. The percepts are, does he have the emotional sort of connection with his players to sort of get them to do what he wants to. Does he have it when he needs it? He has that."

KICK RETURN: Kicker and unrestricted free agent Matt Prater, whom the Lions picked up in Week 6 after Nate Freese and Alex Henery failed to keep the job, said he wants to return with the Lions next season.

Prater, who set the Denver Broncos' season record for accuracy last season, missed two of his first three kicks in his Lions debut at Minnesota. He settled down after that and went made 20-of-23 (89.9%) the rest of the regular season, then converted both of his field-goal attempts against the Cowboys.

"I saw this great team with coach Caldwell and (special teams coordinator John Bonamego) and everyone else," Prater said. "I wanted to come here to work with them and they put a lot of trust in me, so I didn't want to let them down. Now I feel like I owe them, so I want to stay here as long as I can."

FAURIA'S DECISION: Tight end Joseph Fauria said he would weigh all options for rehabbing his injured ankle.

"I have a lot of options, a lot of things that I can do," he said. "So I've got to make a decision next week."

Asked if the ankle was still bothering him, Fauria said: "Well, I mean, I got IR'd so it was still bothering me, otherwise I would have been out there."

Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com . Follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.