Bears' defense unhappy in loss

Even with his breakout season seemingly having ended prematurely, Willie Young was all Willie Young.

Young and fun.

No questions about the left side of his body, the big Bear requested.

"Come on, man," Young, who boasts 10 sacks, said wide-eyed. "Y'all know protocol."

And, please, no talk of the defensive end's special season being over with one game left. Never mind that he departed Sunday's 20-14 loss to Detroit early in the second half with what the Bears said was an Achilles injury.

Young walked off Soldier Field's grass with assistance, before being carted into the locker room.

He didn't return.

"I was just taking a break for a little while," joked Young, wearing a walking boot on his left foot after the game. "What are y'all talking about? … What's up?"

All fun aside, Young and his teammates knew what happened to rookie Ego Ferguson was no laughing matter. Soon after Young left the game, Ferguson limped off on his own after Lions center Dominic Raiola, at the end of a play, stepped on the right ankle of the Bears defensive tackle.

"I was kind of stumbling," Raiola said. "It was totally unintentional. I talked to Ego at the end of the game. Everything was cool. I apologized."

The apology didn't seem to matter.

"You all saw the play," said Ferguson, who returned to the game. "You need to stay in between the lines, and he didn't stay in between the lines."

"I saw it," said Jared Allen, who notched a sack. "There's no need for that. That's how guys' careers get ended. Raiola is too good of a player for that to be what people talk about with him."

Before signing with the Bears in the off-season, Young spent his first four NFL seasons as a teammate of Raiola, a 14-year veteran who last month was fined $10,000 by the league for trying to club New England defensive tackle Zach Moore. In 2008, the Lions fined Raiola $7,500 after he made an obscene gesture toward heckling Lions fans.

"He's great off the field. Great guy. Heck of a guy," Young said of Raiola. "He takes care of his players. He's all about team, all about unity, all about camaraderie and keeping guys together. … He's always taken care of me like I was his little brother."

The Bears sacked Matthew Stafford four times - including once by rookie linebacker Christian Jones and once by second-year player David Bass - intercepted him twice and held him to a 53.7 rating.

Bears rookie safety Brock Vereen picked off Stafford in the end zone for his first NFL interception, and Ryan Mundy's team-leading fourth pick gave the Bears the ball at their own 2.

"Very impressive defensive performance today," Young said. "I saw a lot of growth. At this time of the year, you're fighting for pride, you're fighting for our fans and one another. To see that means a lot."

"We had a lot of energy," said Vereen, who kept the football he intercepted. "Guys were flying around and just trying to make plays, and good things happened."

In the end, though, the Bears missed multiple tackles on Joique Bell's go-ahead rushing touchdown from 17 yards out in the fourth quarter. And they lost their fourth game in a row.

"There are no moral victories in football," Allen said. "When you're in these type of games, little things will shoot you in the foot. … At some point, we've got to make plays to win games."

Next Sunday at Minnesota, the 10-loss Bears get one final chance to capture a victory.

"We took them to the wire," Ferguson said of the Lions. "But at the end of the day, everybody in this league gets paid to win, so we've got to win."