2017, Week 15, Detroit Lions vs Chicago Bears @ Home

Catching Up.

The 8-6 Detroit Lions beat the 4-10 Chicago Bears 20-10 on a Saturday Afternoon. You'll note I failed to blog about the Baltimore Ravens loss or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers win due to work related issues so now I'm catching up.

Matthew Stafford was 25 of 33 (75.76%) for 237 yards and 2 touchdowns and no interceptions or fumbles. The Lions produced another 91 yards rushing but more importantly the Lions defense held the Bears to 43 yards rushing and also got 3 interceptions on the Bears rookie QB Trubisky, who was 31 of 46 (67.39%) for 314 yards and a touchdown.

The leading receiver for the Lions was TE Eric Ebron (again) who had 5 catches for 33 yards and a touchdown. Marvin Jones Jr had the most yards though, 3 catches for 85 yards. The Lions took the lead with a field goal on the first drive of the game and never lost it. The Bears were the team spending an entire game trying to catch up, which made for a more comfortable job of watching the game (just hours earlier I finally got to watch the Ravens game I had DVR'd, that was not comfortable to watch). The Lions even had some new plays in the Bears game, that worked, and up until the 4th quarter when the defense went into prevent (the dreaded zone defense) the Lions proved they were the better team. Of course, the record says they are even before the kickoff, but with the "any given [Sun]day" and the "that's why they play the games" you just never know for sure.

I could go into all the things the team still does wrong... maybe complain some more about the coaching... even talk about the next off season (including the draft)... but there is still a chance the Lions could make the playoffs so I won't, much. I mean the Lions still would have to win both their next two games AND have a couple of key teams lose one or more games in order to actually make the playoffs, but that is also not new news (or fake news either for that matter).

After the Sunday and Monday games perhaps I can get into more catching up on the playoff picture, if I have the time to do so. If not, the Lions next game is against the Bengals in Cincinnati (the Bengals are currently 5-8) and the Lions will need to play even harder then today to win that game... thing is, the Lions have shown they can... and the Bengals are not playing with a winning record... so most likely the Lions will be favored to win... even if it could end up being another uncomfortable game to watch. Here's hoping the Lions can once again get an early lead then keep it, makes life so much less stressful (except for Bengals fans I suppose). Meanwhile Lions fans need to root for the Panthers, the Falcons, and the Seahawks to lose. An eye must also be kept on the Cowboys and the Packers, but if the Lions win their last two games neither of those two teams can do anything about it, and the Lions play the Packers New Years Eve day.