It’s been a few weeks since the Detroit Lions played at 1 p.m. ET on a Sunday. The Lions have played today’s Week 16 opponent, the Chicago Bears, more recently than they last played at the traditional early Sunday kickoff.
As such, this Sunday’s morning pot of coffee is rushed a bit. It’s time to get buzzing about the Lions once again. The 12-2 Lions head west on I-94 to Chicago to play the 4-10 Bears, losers of eight games in a row. It’s time for the first-place Lions to shine through the wintry gloaming and bring smiles back to Detroit after a tough loss to the Bills that added more names to the already-naughty list of injured players.
Here’s what’s on mind in the hours before the game at Soldier Field…
Why I think the Lions will win
Aside from the fact that the Bears have exactly one offensive player (WR D.J. Moore) who would start this week for Detroit, or the additional fact that Bears defensive front has fallen off a cliff since the start of their nine-game losing streak, there are just so many reasons to believe the Lions cruise in Chicago.
The Xs and Os all favor the Lions, every single one of them. That’s still true even with the recent injury ravages to Detroit’s defense. But it’s the Lions offense versus the Bears defense that leaves me bullish on the trip to Chicago.
In the past, which includes the tightly played Thanksgiving matchup, the Bears defense presented quite a few problems for Detroit’s offense. Between their scheme crowding the middle of the field and Chicago’s ability to reliably generate pressure without blitzing, there might not be a better defensive design to slow down QB Jared Goff and OC Ben Johnson’s offense.
That Chicago defense might still have much of the same personnel, but they appear to have been declawed. The Bears have fallen from grace. Over the last six games–which includes the Week 13 meeting–Chicago has managed just nine sacks and a pressure percentage that ranks 28th over that time, per SIS. The stingy early-season defense has allowed 28 per game in the last month and is trending in the wrong way. The run defense, never a strength, continues to surrender almost five yards per carry on first down and 4.7 (27th in the league) overall.
For all of the Lions injuries, the offense is still in pretty good shape. Losing David Montgomery certainly hurts, but the rest of the skill position players are coming off a game where they hung 42 points on a very good Bills team.
The vaunted Lions offensive line hasn’t played to its lofty standards recently. There are two ways to look at that. Either Penei Sewell, Frank Ragnow and friends just aren’t that good anymore, or they’re due for a rebound game where they assert their dominance. I’ll take the latter in this one, with some legitimate disappointed surprise if it doesn’t play out that way.
Detroit’s defense continues the search for healthy bodies, and the latest losses of Alim McNeill and (especially) Carlton Davis are quite problematic. The Lions plan a ton of man coverage in part because Davis, as the team’s top cover man, is very good at it. Caleb Williams, the Bears’ rookie QB, is at his worst when facing man coverage. Their receivers don’t separate easily from man, and Williams’ hesitancy to let it fly exacerbates their issues. Even without Davis and McNeill joining the injured list, I don’t see Williams suddenly becoming much better at any of those things–especially not with a banged-up OL and an interim coach who doesn’t appear to have resonated with the team as they hoped.
What concerns me about the Bears
Last week, ahead of the Lions-Bills game in this spot, I gave a two-word answer here. Josh Allen.
This week, I’ll give another two-word answer for what worries me about the Bears.
Not much.
Okay, that’s a little too dismissive of another professional team, one that the Lions edged by just three points last month. They still have a very good tight end in Cole Kmet, who works very well in tandem with D.J. Moore–a guy who has proven he’s one of the best all-around receivers in the league even if the stats don’t necessarily say so.
Keenan Allen isn’t close to what he used to be in his Chargers prime, but he remains a viable threat in the red zone and on the sidelines. Rookie Rome Odunze is, much like his fellow top-10 rookie at QB, sporadically great but often not quite there yet. Old friend D’Andre Swift is a legit receiving threat out of the backfield, something that Josh Allen and the Bills destroyed Detroit’s defense with a week ago.
Williams, of course, is the key to it all. While stylistically quite different, his rookie campaign has a few similarities to one Matthew Stafford in Detroit back in 2009. Remember those days, Lions fans? We loved the flashes of brilliance and the glimpses of the emerging standout, but there were also those weird empty drives that strung together a little too easily in just about every game. The sharpness of the eyes and the relative inexperience against the speedier schemes and defenses of the NFL gave young Stafford a lot of trouble. They do against Williams, too. But if, by chance, Williams can keep his composure for four quarters, the Bears offense can definitely do some damage against Detroit the way Stafford could take over a game or two as a rookie.
Chicago’s defense still fares well at creating takeaways. They do still gum up the 5-to-10-yard passes over the middle as well as anyone, and that’s still where Jared Goff is at his best in targeting. The Bears are still capable on third down defense (10th) and red zone TD percentage (3rd). They should have some semblance of confidence after playing very effective defense in the second half on Thanksgiving, too. If ever there was a team with a death-gasp stunner of a game, this is the time and place for it for Chicago.
Final score prediction
I’m going to hedge this one, because there are two distinct ways I see the Lions and Bears playing out.
A) The Lions come out flat in the cold, struggle with a defensive miscommunication or two, and fall behind at the half. Then Dan Campbell roars life into his team at halftime and Detroit prevails 27-22.
B) Detroit replicates the first half success from the Thanksgiving meeting, but this time the Bears are more resigned to their losing fate and the Lions cruise 33-12.
Either way, the Lions should improve to 13-2.
