The Chicago Bears defeated the Detroit Lions 20-13 in week 10. But don’t get it twisted, the Bears are a bad football team. They have an awful head coach who absolutely butchers in-game decision making and clock management. They have a third-year QB in Mitchell Trubisky who appears to be regressing. Their leading rusher averages 3.6 yards per attempt.

The problem is, against a Matthew Stafford-less Lions team, you can still win despite all these problems. And even when the backup QB, who found out he was playing a few hours before kickoff, makes a late push, the refs will carry you to the finish line.

That’s why I’m so hot that the Lions’ season is over. It’s not just because it’s over, but because that dumpster fire of a team is the one that ended it.

On to the observations. I can’t believe I have to do this eight more times.

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No Stafford, big problem

Matthew Stafford’s dark-horse MVP campaign ended in week 10, along with the Lions’ season. His streak of 136 consecutive starts was snapped, much like the broken bones in his back.

Broken back? Boo hoo, suck it up. Actually, it probably hurts to suck, literally and figuratively.

Insert Jeff Driskel, who performed admirably, dare I say, pretty damn good considering he was going up against 2018’s No. 1 defense, on the road, with the Bears’ season on life support. Driskel threw the ball 46 times, totaling 269 yards, 1 TD and 1 pick. He also ran five times for 37 yards, showing good pocket awareness and getting out of trouble rather than forcing a throw or taking a sack.

Driskel actually could’ve had a huge game, but the receivers picked the wrong day to get a case of the dropsies. They were costly too, with Danny Amendola and Kenny Golladay dropping key 4th quarter passes during the Lions comeback bid. Not sure how the Lions wideouts have been so good catching missiles from Stafford all season, but now can’t handle passes from Driskel. Familiarity may have played a role, as Driskel hadn’t so much as practiced with the first team.

All in all, Driskel played well enough to win this game. But he’s no Matthew Stafford. Driskel’s QB rating (73.6) and yards per attempt (5.85) both would have been season lows for Stafford. Matt Patricia and Darrell Bevell clearly wanted to go conservative with Driskel in this game, preferring to dink and dunk rather than air it out. That’s understandable to a point. The problem is, it eliminates the chunk plays that have been the greatest strength of the offense this season. When Driskel was allowed to throw deep, he actually looked fairly capable. Too bad the Lions were down two scores before he was able to uncork a deep ball or two.

There simply was no scenario where the Lions win this game by ball control and defense. Just because Stafford went down doesn’t mean that your other weaknesses cease to exist. That being said, Driskel played about as well as anyone could have hoped. Maybe with a week of prep with the starters, the WRs reel in a few of those drops and we aren’t playing the “what if” game for 38th time this season.

Risk/Reward Risk/Reward Risk/Reward

Matt Patricia makes me want to pull my hair out, but my hair is a precious commodity and we don’t have much time left together.

This is the third game this season, including Week 1 against Arizona (the tie) and Week 8 against Oakland (one score loss) where Matt Patricia elects to punt instead of allowing Matt Prater to kick long field goals, which, in case you haven’t heard, he’s really good at. Like, all-time good. Like, the-best-to-ever-do-it good. He’s the G.O.A.T. of long-distance field goals.  

This game featured the most egregious of those decisions because he elected to punt twice in a game where you knew points would be especially hard to come by, given the QB situation. The second punt was a by-product of the first, but surely Patricia would have let Prater rip one from 59 yards to cut it to a one-score deficit late had he let him kick it from 57 earlier. Unfortunately, the first decision to punt meant the second would have only cut a 14 point deficit to 11, which doesn’t really help you that much. That, my friends, is called a trickle-down effect. 

For those scoring at home, Prater makes 50+ yard field goals at a 76% clip for his career, and 85% this season (missing only once). Prater should be allowed to kick anything inside 60 yards without giving it a second thought. It should be auto-pilot coaching. I would love to ask Patricia what his rationale is behind these conservative decisions, but he would probably respond with “we have to get back to basics and work on our fundamentals“. 

But don’t just take it from me, here is a pregame observation from Lions beat writer Kyle Meinke, who was watching Prater in warmups…

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I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t disclose this: I understand these are not “if X, then Y” scenarios. There is no guarantee all of these FGs would be made, and even if they were, there is no guarantee the game outcome would be any different. But the Lions are now 0-2-1 in the games where Patricia keeps the shackles on Prater. Stop coaching scared with your season on the line.

Refs are still undefeated against Lions

Step into my office.

We humans are very adaptable creatures. Our brains are malleable, taking in new information from our environment and experiences, forming new neural pathways. We live, we learn, we grow.

But no matter how many times I experience the Lions getting boned by poor officiating, I can’t get used to it. Is there something wrong with me (besides the fact that I am a Lions fan in the first place)?  

Did anyone else watch the Monday night matchup between the 49ers and Seahawks? Great game, with Seattle winning on a FG in overtime. Do you know what my favorite part about that game was? There wasn’t a flag being thrown every 10 seconds. There were a grand total of two penalties combined called in the second-half and OT.

I want to live in that world.

The worst of the worst

The back-breaking (pun intended) call in this one was the offensive pass interference on Kenny Golladay (away from the play) on a successful 4th down conversion to J.D. McKissic with 2 minutes left in the game. It wasn’t replayed on the TV broadcast (how fitting), but Erik Schlitt of Lions Wire captured the play in question.   

I went back and watched the play, and the flag comes in six seconds after the contact by Golladay. Six seconds. That’s not just a typical late flag. That’s a wait for the play to end, see if the Lions convert, and if they do, call something type of late flag. Not to mention the fact that this just isn’t pass interference in the first place. And even if it was, it had no bearing on the play. Plus the contact is within five yards of the line of scrimmage. 

Oh, and there’s also HOW THE F*CK DO YOU CALL THAT WITH 2 MINUTES TO GO ON 4TH DOWN!!!!!

Take that, backstage area. Now I feel better. 

I say this every time I go on a rant about officiating: There are bad calls in every game, against every team. But the bad calls involving the Lions have maximum impact, and routinely lead to changes in the rulebook and “we’re sorry” calls from league representatives. Plus, the Lions are just not good enough to overcome these calls. They have had so many opportunities to power through the injustice and win despite the officials’ incompetence, but can’t seem to get it done.

Yes, it does, Rasheed. It ALWAYS lies. The ball is a liar. A pathological liar.

The worst of the rest

We can’t end the poor officiating section without at least mentioning the two missed facemasks on J.D. McKissic, the picked up and called off passed interference (love a good picked up PI flag) when Hockenson was shoulder blocked in the 2nd quarter, and the pass interference on Darius Slay in the 3rd where the ball landed in the upper bowl. That was catchable, right? Yeah, maybe for the Rocketeer!

I try my best to keep the material fresh. I’ve never even seen that movie.

The defense wasn’t half bad

The in-depth position analysis isn’t quite as important now that the Lions have both feet in the grave, but I still have a job to do.

The Lions actually outgained the Bears by a wide margin (357 to 226), largely due to one of their better defensive efforts of the season. They forced nine Chicago punts, and won the time of possession battle, despite being a minus 1 in the turnover department. Unfortunately, on the few possessions Chicago didn’t punt, they cashed in for touchdowns, something the Lions didn’t do enough. Give Mitchell Trubisky credit, his TD throws weren’t gifts from the Lions. He dropped a few dimes and earned his splash plays.

Defensive line

The defensive line was better, though we’ll hold off on calling it good. “Snacks” Harrison, quite possibly the most disappointing Lions player this season, once again played less than half the game (44%), but at least he made a couple run stuffs. My how he has lowered his bar of acceptable production.

Mike Daniels looked strong, registering a sack in his first action since Week 3 (though he might be done-zo). Trey Flowers also chipped in a sack, his fourth in the last three games.

Linebackers

This was their best game in weeks.

Jarrad Davis had been graded as the worst linebacker in the NFL in 2019 by Pro Football Focus heading into this game. Matt Patricia responded with an appropriate adjustment, removing Davis from his every-down “quarterback of the defense” role, as Davis played by far his fewest snaps of the season (77%). It worked, as Davis went from worst to first (at least for one game), earning him PFF’s highest Lions grade in Week 10.

Devon Kennard and Jahlani Tavai each pitched in with a sack as well. As a unit, they helped hold Chicago to just 81 yards rushing. Can’t ask for much more from this much-maligned group.

Stafford’s future

The Lions are reportedly considering Matthew Stafford’s injury situation “day to day”, so technically his season isn’t over. This may just be them going through the motions with the media, not showing their cards until absolutely necessary. I would be shocked if he returned this season if there really are fractures in his back. Stafford’s toughness is the stuff of legends, and you won’t find any shortage of teammates (or opponents) who will attest to that.

Stafford didn’t play because doctors ruled him ineligible, not because he couldn’t handle the pain. The bottom line is Stafford is still the quarterback who will determine whether the Quinn/Patricia era succeeds or fails in Detroit, and they would be foolish to risk his long term health. Quinn and Patricia aren’t going anywhere after this season, so they can afford to pack 2019 in. Hell, it even gives them an excuse to point to down the road if they end up going 5-11 (or 5-10-1. Damn that tie!). The numbers will say that Stafford was playing at a career-high level and that the team was still in playoff contention at the time he went down. I think they take advantage of that convenient scapegoat and end Stafford’s 2019 campaign.

Don’t worry Motown Matt. I’ll never let the haters forget what you did this season. You’ll always be my QB. Am I creeping you out?

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