Jamaal Williams sat in front of his locker, head down, brushing his hair,
beating himself up over his role in another baffling loss by the Detroit Lions.
Williams lost a fumble on the goal line early in the fourth quarter of Sunday's 24-6 defeat to the Dallas Cowboys,
the second of five turnovers the Lions committed in a snowball of a second half.
The Cowboys turned three of those mistakes into the only three touchdowns of the game,
and pulled away in the final minutes with a victory that left the Lions (1-5) with the worst record in the NFL.
"I put it on me," Williams told a small group of reporters after the game
. "We should have scored and everything would have been different if I didn’t put us in that situation
of making people have to do more than what they had to do, then we wouldn’t be in that situation."
Williams had never lost a fumble before Sunday, when it happened on the 745th carry of his career.
He said he never fully secured the ball, which he lost when he ran into a pile of defenders near the goal line.
"I put this on my back," Williams said. "This is my fault and it won’t happen again.
I’m going back to work. I’m motivated, I’m pissed. So whoever we’re playing next, they’re fitting to get it."