NFL \ News & notes

49ers: Dre’ Bly took Mike Singletary’s usual spot at the podium in a team meeting room and apologized. Profusely. His coach watched the whole thing. Bly embarrassed himself and the 49ers during Sunday’s 45-10 home loss to the Atlanta Falcons when he intercepted a pass by Matt Ryan in the third quarter and struck a Deion Sanders-like pose with his right hand to his helmet and the ball unprotected in his left. Problem was, Roddy White knocked the ball loose and Atlanta, leading 35-10 at the time, recovered. The Falcons marched downfield and quickly scored again. Bly said he approached Singletary on Monday morning to apologize for the display.

Ravens: The difference between the unbeaten Baltimore Ravens of two weeks ago and the team currently mired in a two-game losing streak isn’t dramatically significant. The Ravens (3-2) would still be undefeated if they finished off a late drive against New England on Oct. 4 and prevented the Cincinnati Bengals from marching 80 yards for a touchdown in the waning minutes of a 17-14 loss Sunday. Then again, Baltimore might be a sub-.500 team if linebacker Ray Lewis didn’t make a game-saving tackle in San Diego in Week 2. “The bottom line is this: We make a couple plays we didn’t make and we’re 5-0. We don’t make a couple plays in one other game and we’re 2-3,” coach John Harbaugh said Monday.

Lions: Calvin Johnson struggled to simply walk out of Ford Field. The Detroit Lions receiver left the locker room and hobbled in a hallway, then could not bend his right knee as he went up stairs. The good news, though, for Detroit is that its best player is not as hurt as he appeared to be after missing much of Sunday’s loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Detroit coach Jim Schwartz said Monday he would not label Johnson’s injury as significant, adding the team will know more Wednesday.

Associated Press