Kitnas’ Halloween costumes scare up negative response

ALLEN PARK, Mich. – Detroit Lions quarterback Jon Kitna and his wife dressed up as a naked man and a fast-food drive-through attendant at a teammate’s Halloween party, depicting an embarrassing moment for one of the team’s assistant coaches.

Now Kitna is getting some flak on local TV and in a newspaper column. Kitna said he was just trying to have fun, but regrets the scrutiny the costumes created.

“If I would’ve known this, I wouldn’t have done it because I didn’t want to try to bring attention to it,” Kitna said Wednesday while surrounded by reporters and television cameras.

Defensive line coach Joe Cullen pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct and guilty to impaired driving after he was arrested twice last year, once in August 2006 after police said he was driving nude through a Wendy’s drive-through lane, and a week later when they said he was driving under the influence of alcohol.

Cullen later was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings twice a week.

“He’s done everything they’ve asked of him,” Lions coach Rod Marinelli said before this season started. “And, there’s a lot more that he’s had to do.”

Marinelli said Kitna’s costume was a non-issue with the team.

Cullen said “no comment” as he walked off the practice field Wednesday, but the team said it asked him if the costume bothered him.

“No, not at all,” Cullen said in a statement released by the team. “It’s in the past.

Kitna and his wife wore the costumes to a teammate’s charity party Monday in suburban Detroit, where the prize for the best outfit was a car.