Offense
- The Lions came out stacking the line of scrimmage just like everyone else. The Bears responded by throwing the ball more, apparently deciding that they could actually beat the Lions defensive backs. They also threw some Mitchell Trubisky runs in. All of this combined to loosen the defense up and the Bear sustained a drive down to the 5 yard line before settling for a field goal.
- It didn’t help the Lions that they struggled to get a pass rush on Trubisky early.
- I thought it was interesting that the Bears chose to pass on that first possession in the red zone. I noticed the first thing they did when they got down there again was run Jordan Howard before throwing for the touchdown to Adam Shaheen.
- Shaheen had a breakout game as Trubisky hit him on some pin point passes in tight coverage.
- Shaheen had such a good game in part because the Bears apparently decided to target the tight ends this game. He and Brown certainly started hot with 3 catches for 36 yards and a touchdown.
- It looked like the Bears made a concerted effort to get Tarik Cohen on the field more this game after taking heavy criticism in the media last week for not playing him more.
- Second week in a row that we’ve seen the Bears run a good screen play. That’s encouraging.
- Kudos to the Bears offensive line as they dominated the line of scrimmage early in this game. Trubisky showed what he could do when he gets protection. Unfortunately things weren’t so rosy in the second and third quarters.
- Jordan Howard had a pretty good game as he went over 100 yards. The Bears seemed to find the running game a bit in the fourth quarter after stalling for most of two quarters before that.
Defense
- Not a fast start for the Lions as they just didn’t execute well early on. Stafford was a little inconsistent and fumbled the ball away on their first possession. You have to wonder if they didn’t take the Bears a little lightly. They got their feet under them in the second quarter.
- The Bears did a reasonable job of getting pressure on Stafford as that Lions offensive line initially didn’t look a lot better than it did last year to my eye. Like everything about the offense, they did a better job starting late in the first half.
- The Bears mixed coverages quite a bit and they weren’t always in that cover two that they like so much. The Lions did a pretty good job of finding holes in the coverage for big gains when they finally started moving the ball. Looks like the Lions definitely know how to beat zone defenses. It served them well today.
- Marcus Cooper didn’t do his chances of continuing to play a lot of good when he let Marvin Jones run around him like he was an orange traffic cone on the Lions second touchdown late in the first half.
Miscellaneous
- Thom Brennaman and Chris Spielman were your announcers. Spielman threw in some good points this week after a down performance last week.For example, he had an interesting tidbit about Trubisky calling out the blocking assignments at the line of scrimmage on a successful run that I thought was pretty good. Later he caught Stafford yelling “opposite” as he told the offense which direction to run the ball. Spielman also made a good point when he showed that the Bears were double teaming Theo Riddick. It’s rare to double a running back out of the backfield.
- Both special teams until played well, I thought, until Connor Barth missed a game tying field goal by a mile.
- Kyle Log got an unnecessary roughness on a rather stupid late hit. Prince Amukamara had a bad pass interference [penalty that cost the Bears about 30 yards. Both teams had damaging penalties.
- Drops weren’t excessive but Kenny Galloway had a huge one with less than 2 minutes left tin the game that took 10 valuable yards away from the Lions as they were trying to get within easy field goal range. It also stopped the clock. It essentially force a 52 yard attempt by Matt Prater to win the game.
- Akiem Hicks recovered a Stafford fumble on the Lions first possession. Nick Kwiatkoski knocked it loose. The Bears converted it into a touchdown. D.J. Hayden picked up a bad snap for the Lions and scored a touchdown as the Bears gave the points from the Kwiatkoski recovery right back [eye roll].
- The Bears lost Leonard Floyd to injury and almost lost Kyle Fuller but neither would have been bigger than the loss of Eddie Goldman. The Bears weren’t the same last year after Goldman went down. I was glad to see him go back in.
- Tweet of the day:
@BradBiggs: Since #Bears went ahead 17-7, they have run 13 offensive plays.
That was near the end of the third quarter.
The Bears went dead in this game in the middle and couldn’t sustain what they started. They found their legs again for a bit in the fourth quarter and Trubisky made it a game as he led the bears down field to try for a game winning field goal. But it was too little too late after the defense gave up a very long, time consuming drive that ended in a Lions field goal.
The Bears showed some potential this game as they opened up the offense. They might have beaten a team like the Lions on an off day. But the Lions were the better team and generally played like it.
Bears fans will just have to be patient.