FanPost

Lions at Bears Afterthoughts

I went back and watched the game on DVR this morning as I knew sleep was not a viable option. I knew it could be painful but I did not exactly have anything better to do. I was actually surprised at how many positives I can take from this game. Perhaps the sting of the loss was not so harsh knowing since I knew what was coming, emotionally numb from the dramatic loss, and beyond tired. So it did not make it hard for me to watch the game again with the advantages of pause, rewind, and prior knowledge of what to look for. After the jump I will share with you some observations I made during the game and I must warn you that while I will not talk at all about the final play, everything is not going to be sunshine and roses that I write.

I will begin with my thoughts on some individual player performances from the game.

Cliff Avril had a very nice game before he was injured. After the injury he seemed to tail off a bit, most likely playing at not 100%. I really liked his heads up play on the fumble that Chris Houston caused on Greg Olsen. Not only did he realize it was a fumble and recover the ball but he also totally ran over Olen Kreutz on his run afterwards.

Turk McBride came in relief of Cliff and had a very nice game. He had a sack and forced fumble to kill one drive, and later another sack to kill a second drive. He also ate up a run play very nicely too.

Isaiah Ekejiuba had a very nice game as a 3rd string line backer and special teams player. He made a nice tackle on the 10 yard line after our 2nd touchdown in the first half. He also made the key block shed and stuffed the hole to force a turnover on downs during that goal line stand. Possibly unnoticed he also made a nice tackle late in the 4th quarter to hold Devin Hester to a 7 yard return and keep the Bears out of field goal range.

Landon Johnson quietly played a solid game. While he did not make any huge plays I did not see a lot of mistakes from him either.

Zack Follett also played a nice quiet game, free of major errors. He did not see as much time as other linebackers since he was not on the field in the nickel packages, which were out there a lot.

Kyle Vanden Bosch played lights out. The guy sets the tone for our whole defense and has an amazing motor. I hope some others start to take that never say die attitude to heart and play all out until the whistle blows too. Many do don’t get me wrong, I just want to see more of it.

Julian Peterson had a very up and down game. While he showed a lot more energy and effort than I have seen him display in Detroit, he also missed a couple of costly tackles and got burned in coverage for a TD. Props to him on his tipped pass though.

Aaron Berry looks very good, I hope his shoulder heals soon.

C.C. Brown played lights out. He was hitting hard, causing fumbles, and did not have too many coverage liabilities considering that he was as force to be reckoned with out there.

Louis Delmas had a nice game. It was good to see him out there flying around. That guy must have a big heart and a high pain tolerance to play like that with the injury he has.

The secondary as a whole impressed me with their physical play, tackling, and limiting the big passes from being touchdowns.

Bryant Johnson had a nice catch on the final drive of the game, and laid it all out there trying to run under the last throw in the end zone too. Nice effort from him.

Jay Cutler could have thrown 3 more interceptions than he did. 2 lame ducks while in the grasp, and 1 on a miscue from his wide receivers that caught Chris Houston off guard.

Now I will get to the not so nice stuff.

Our kicking game was pathetic. Both Jason Hanson’s kick offs and Nick Harris’s punts are extremely disturbing to me. Thankfully though our kick coverage looked real good.

This one may upset you as much as the controversial incomplete pass at the end of the game. I have watched the replay of the Peppers sack that injured Stafford over and over again, trying to see how he got hurt. To Peppers credit, once Stafford was going down he tried his best to let off and not injure him. Here is the kicker though; Stafford was clearly in the process of tucking the ball while the fumble occurred. I guess the tuck rule does not apply to the Detroit Lions.

Our line backers are horrible in coverage. Matt Forte led Chicago in receiving with 7 receptions for 151 yards (21.6 avg.) and 2 touchdowns.

The Lions cannot close out halves. We gave up all but 3 points in the final 2 minutes of the halves. Our defense actually dominated them for all but those very important 4 minutes of the game. We actually gave up 113 yards in the last 2 minutes of the first half, including the turnover, which should have fallen under the tuck rule. We also gave up 35 yards after the 2 minute mark for the go ahead TD. So a total of 148 yards at the end of the halves.

Since everyone was all over Scott Linehan’s butt and even some have gone so far as to put up a post calling for him to be fired, I thought I would look at the play calling and performance of Shaun Hill in the second half. I think as you look at the drive summary it all becomes apparent what happened.

Logan returns the kick off from the 4 for 18

1-10 @ D22: Run by Best to left guard for 1

2-9 @ D23: Pass dropped by Pettigrew

3-9 @ D23: Pass to Burleson incomplete (looked like pass interference to me)

PUNT

Logan returns the punt from the 12 yard line for 3 yards

1-10 @ D15: Pass (screen) to Best who had room but slipped and got no gain

2-10 @ D15: Sacked Hill for -9, delayed blitz that Best failed to pick up

3-10 @ D6: Pass to Best for 1, failed to juke 1 guy to have room to run

PUNT

Punt goes into end zone, touchback

1-10 @ D20: Run by Morris to left guard -3

2-13 @ D17: Pass to C. J. for 12

3-1 @ D29: Run (hurry up offense) by Morris to right guard for 0

PUNT

McBride sacks Cutler and fumble recovered @ C34

1-10 @ C39: Fumbled snap recovered and Hill scrambles for 3

2-7 @ C36: Pass dropped by C. J. (would have made it 1 yard to a first down)

3-7 @ C36: Pass to C. J. for 8

1-10 @ C28: Pass intended for C. J. who slipped

INTERCEPTION

Logan fair catch @ D9

1-20 @ D9: Sack / Hit on handoff and fumbled for -8 (Briggs came unblocked)

FUMBLE

Turnover on downs by Chicago @ D1

1-10 @ D1: Run by Hill for 1

2-9 @ D2: Run by Best to right tackle for -1

3-10 @ D1: Penalty delay of game for 0 yards

3-10 @ D1: Pass to C. J. for 9 yards, Ugh! 1 yard short!

PUNT

Punted out of bounds by Chicago @ D14

1-10 @ D14: Pass dropped by Burleson, ugh this would have been a first down

2-10 @ D14: Run by best to right sideline for 0, ran into people instead of away

3-10 @ D14: Hill forced to throw away to avoid sack

PUNT

The next possession Chicago scored on and I am not going to talk about the last possession.

On Best, I still like the guy and I am pulling for him, but a lot of the failure in his runs was his own fault due to bad choices or getting arm tackled. I expect him to remedy that with more experience.

So to sum up the failures here you could list just about every one on offense but the coach (Linehan) and Hill. Now take into account that we turned the ball over at their 28, which would have likely been at least 3 points if not 6, and that we were still up by 1 under 2 minutes and the Bears were only at our 35, which would be what a 47-48 yard field goal? That is not a sure field goal at all. Not to mention that we only needed to eat 120 more seconds off the clock to ensure victory lets you know just how close we were to winning. I look at all of the failures to make a guy miss by Best and Morris, failures to open a running lane by the line, failures to pick up blitzes (one of which caused a fumble), drops by Pettigrew, Calvin, Burleson and the interception that was caused by Calvin slipping which was easily a 3 point swing at lest. And it is clear that this loss was not because of Linehan, Hill, or the final play by Calvin that was shenanigans.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pride Of Detroit or its writers.