Lions News

[froot loops]

Only kstat can post magic numbers

[whatever_gong82]

[-Deborah-]

What? Hawaiian Punch is doing well?

[edindetroit]

https://www.mlive.com/lions/2023/11/detroit-lions-pass-rusher-takes-another-step-toward-returning-from-ir.html?utm_campaign=mlivesports_sf&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

[Mainevent]

That’s embarrassing, dude, grow up.

[whatever_gong82]

David Montgomery TD seals Lions comeback win vs. Bears: Chicago’s 4 takeaways not enough


By The Athletic Staff
Nov 19, 2023

By Colton Pouncy, Kevin Fishbain and Adam Jahns


David Montgomery and Aidan Hutchinson came up with game-clinching plays in the waning seconds of the Detroit Lions’ 31-26 win against the Chicago Bears on Sunday at Ford Field. Here’s what you need to know:

* Bears quarterback Justin Fields passed for 169 yards and a touchdown and added 104 rushing yards as Chicago held a 26-14 win with 4:15 to play.

* David Montgomery punched in a 1-yard touchdown run to give Detroit a 29-26 lead with just 29 seconds to play.

* Hutchinson then forced a Fields fumble on the first play of the final Bears drive turning into a safety to help

* Lions (8-2) quarterback Jared Goff threw two touchdowns and three interceptions, but the Lions added two scoring drives in the fourth quarter.


At least Lions finished it off


The Lions turned the ball over four times, allowed Fields to run for 104 yards and yet still beat the Bears on a day without their best stuff. This was far from Detroit’s best effort, but give the Lions credit for finishing.

Trailing 26-14 with 4:14 to go, they scored on their final two possessions — and converted a two-point conversion — to go up 29-26. When the Bears needed a score, the Lions’ pass rush got home, sacking Fields and forcing a fumble that resulted in a Lions safety. With the win, the Lions improved to 8-2 on the season and 2-0 in the NFC North. Good teams find ways to win, and that’s what the Lions did today. — Colton Pouncy, Lions staff writer


Four takeaways not enough for Bears


Bad teams lose games like this. The Bears had won 22 in a row dating back to 2008 when they took the ball away four times in a game (per Stathead). They squandered a 12-point lead and can look back to earlier missed opportunities as a reason they lost the game.

There’s a lot to be encouraged about from the takeaways on defense to Fields’ running to his touchdown throw to DJ Moore, but the final few minutes were a reminder of why the Lions are in first, and the Bears are in last. — Kevin Fishbain, Bears staff writer


Fields impresses in first game back


Fields’ first game back from injury was a good one. Well, for the most part. Fields finished 16-of-23 for 169 yards and a touchdown for a 105.2 passer rating. He also had 18 carries.

“Overall, I think Justin had a good game,” coach Matt Eberflus said.

But it still wasn’t good enough. Fields didn’t blow the Bears’ 26-14 lead in the fourth quarter. That’s on Eberflus and his defense. But Fields missed rookie receiver Tyler Scott on a third-down deep ball in the final three minutes. It’s a miss that wouldn’t have mattered as much if the defense did its job. But it was one that Fields and Scott discussed after the game.

“I just kind of misjudged it I guess a little bit,” Scott said. “It’s just something to learn from.”

Fields played well enough to win his first game back after missing four straight because of a dislocated right thumb. — Adam Jahns, Bears senior writer


Highlight of the game

[edindetroit]

[whatever_gong82]

Lions show vs. Bears to never count them out: ‘If you think it’s over, it’s not’


By Colton Pouncy
Nov 19, 2023



DETROIT — This was one of those Sundays at Ford Field where you start thinking about beating the stadium traffic, what you’re gonna eat for dinner, pretty much anything other than the game itself in the moment.

Maybe you fired off a tweet that didn’t age well. Maybe you sent some angry texts in a group chat or said some choice words in the direction of your television during this game. It’s understandable if your mind went there. It was that kind of game for the Detroit Lions, for much of the game. You’ve seen it all before.



These players, this staff, this team, though? They had something else on their minds.

“We’re gonna fight it till it says 0:00,” defensive tackle Alim McNeill said in the locker room, after the Lions’ 31-26 comeback win over the Chicago Bears improved their record to 8-2. “We were down 26-14 with 2:59 to go and we won the game. We’re gonna fight till it says 0:00. If you think it’s over, it’s not.”


The Lions, for much of the afternoon, were playing like a team that was begging to lose, begging for people to doubt them. Many had this game against the Bears, who were 3-7, chalked up as a win for the Lions before kickoff. Instead, we saw uncharacteristic football from a group that’s better than the performance it put forth Sunday.

Missed tackles, four turnovers, no flow or rhythm. It all led to the Lions trailing late in the game, looking left for dead.



The perceived dagger came with 6:36 to go. With the Bears up 23-14, a 30-yard run from Justin Fields on third-and-14 put Chicago into Lions territory, with a chance to bleed some more clock and require the Lions to score two touchdowns in the final few minutes.

When he emerged from the ground, Fields danced, then dance some more. A fitting celebration, if not for the final score.

The Bears would take a 26-14 lead with 4:15 to go after a late field goal. Per ESPN analytics, their win probability hit 98.2 percent after the play. That was news to the Lions. They felt it was theirs for the taking. So they took it.

“I would say nobody ever batted an eye at the mistakes,” Lions left tackle Taylor Decker said. “It wasn’t going to be a situation where we were going to quit because you don’t have any option other than going out there and competing. We’d be doing a disservice to each other, the coaches and fans to go out there and not keep fighting. We know in this league it can come down to the last second. We just keep playing.”



When they got the ball back, the Lions offense promptly went to work. Jameson Williams had a pylon route. His job pre-snap was to eye the safety. If he’s playing inside leverage, which Eddie Jackson was, he knows he has enough speed to run to the pylon and beat his man, with Amon-Ra St. Brown getting the corner (Jaylon Johnson) to play low.

Perfect route, perfect read from Jared Goff, and enough space for Jamo to slip behind the defense. Six plays, 75 yards, only 1:16 off the clock. Bears 26, Lions 21.

You want a sign that this Lions team is different? Look no further than Goff and Williams on that play. Their chemistry is still under construction. Williams is still developing as a receiver in this league, and has been criticized this season. But he’s a competitor at heart, and all he wants to do is help this team win games.

Goff had one of his worst performances of the season. He threw three interceptions, costly turnovers that helped the Bears take a lead. But he put it all behind him with the game on the line and helped his team erase it.



“I don’t take my job lightly,” Goff said. “My job is so much greater than how good I do. It’s so much greater than what my stats are, or how many touchdowns I can throw. It’s about being there for my teammates and being the best I can be on every play and throughout the game. And even when things aren’t going my way, I’m not playing as well as I’d like to early on, how do I find a way to kind of center myself back to be what my true job is, (which) is to be the best on every play and do everything I can for my teammates.”

“He’s part of the herd,” coach Dan Campbell said of Williams. “He’s putting in the work, so that was good to see. It was a huge moment, it was a huge play and he just keeps getting better and better and better.”



But the Lions needed more. A defense that had trouble getting off the field and failed to force a three-and-out the first nine times it took the field got one when it needed it most. More often than not, that’s how things happen to go for this team.

Fields and the Chicago offense stepped onto the turn, hoping to ice the game. First down, run up the middle, no gain. Timeout, Lions. Second down, rush left, gain of 1. Timeout, Lions. Third down, moonshot, incomplete. No timeout necessary.



Just like that, the Lions were getting the ball back. It was playing out how they envisioned.

“If we could just find a way to get a stop, I felt pretty good about where we were going to be at,” Campbell said.

Jared Goff beats Bears_11-19-2023.jpg

Before you knew it, the Lions were in business. A gain of 13 here, a gain of 12 there. Passes of 6, 8, 8 and 9 yards. Runs of 10 and six. It was a beautifully crafted drive in which positive yards arrived in bunches. The Lions marched down the field with the belief they were going to win this game.



It set up a first-and-goal from the Chicago 1 with 31 seconds to go. In need of a touchdown, in that moment, the Lions turned to their workhorse back. The Chicago Bear-turned-Detroit Lion. A gameday captain who began the week offering nothing but love for his former teammates and began the day dapping them up before the coin toss. David Montgomery avoided the bait, and took the high road when commenting on his former team. And after his game-winning, 1-yard touchdown with 29 seconds to go, in the locker room surrounded by Chicago media, he used the spotlight to talk about his new team and city. His comments reflect everything he’s all about, and why the Lions signed him in free agency.

“I call this place the land of the misfit toys,” Montgomery said after the game. “You get a lot of guys who’ve been told no their whole lives or been told they’ll never be good enough. You got a beautiful city like this that’s been gritty, (with) blue-collar people. People look at this city for a while as not taken serious, and now, we’re beginning to be serious. The city of Detroit is behind us and you can feel it. We’ve got a bunch of guys in this locker room, the coaches, high-character guys, gritty guys. You see what it’s like when, for a long time, you done got beat down. The tide begins to change.”



The Lions would seal this victory on a strip-sack safety from Aidan Hutchinson, with the Bears hoping to tie it or take the lead. It put the Lions up 31-26, and victory formation ensued. So many Lions teams of the past would’ve lost that one. Some of these players have been on Lions teams that would’ve lost that one. If there were any lingering doubts that this team isn’t like those ones, Sunday served as further proof.

When we talk about “Same Old Lions” with this group, we now have to talk about an old Lions team of the ’60s — the 1962 team, to be exact. That’s the last time this franchise started a season 8-2.



When told that after the game, Decker, the longest-tenured Lion, briefly smiled to himself. McNeill did the same. They’re aware of what they’re doing and the type of team they have. They can take solace in every win — even wins like this — knowing it’s the culmination of a three-year process.

The Lions took their blows from others and bounced right back up. They’ve lost games they should’ve won. They had to learn how to get here, doing what good teams do, winning games they’re not supposed to win.


They’re here.

“Those are the moments we’re built for,” Campbell said. “This is why you play this game at this level, it was for moments just like that. It was awesome.”


Colton Pouncy is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Detroit Lions. He previously covered Michigan State football and basketball for the company, and covered sports for The Tennessean in Nashville prior to joining The Athletic. Follow Colton on Twitter @colton_pouncy

[CGVT]

Haha! This is how I picture dsred and chemiclord when I read the game day thread.

[whatever_gong82]

[whatever_gong82]

[Mainevent]

Haha! This is how I picture dsred and chemiclord when I read the game day thread.

Shit, if that’s anyone around here it’s 100% Jaadam.

[whatever_gong82]

[CGVT]

Shit, if that’s anyone around here it’s 100% Jaadam.

Ha! Probably right.

We should start a thread with pictures/memes/videos of how we see other forum members.

Maybe not. Ha!

[whatever_gong82]

To sweep Green Bay, Lions plan to take away what QB Jordan Love does best


Justin Rogers
The Detroit News



Allen Park — The Detroit Lions are keenly aware Jordan Love likes to throw the ball down the field, and if they hope to sweep the season series from the Green Bay Packers, preventing the quarterback from connecting on those explosive pass plays Thursday at Ford Field will be a top defensive priority.

The Lions made life rough on Love in an early-season meeting between the two teams, holding him to his second-worst passer rating on the year and his worst QBR — which measures down-by-down efficiency — by a wide margin. Still, despite his struggles, Love managed to connect on a pair of long balls in that matchup, hooking up with Jayden Reed for 44 yards in the third quarter and Samori Toure for 35 more in the fourth frame.

Jordan Love taken 50 shots downfield.jpg

Coming into Thursday's game, no quarterback has attempted more passes 20 or more yards beyond the line of scrimmage than Love, who has taken 50 shots downfield. And his 18 connections on those throws rank eighth in the NFL. Plus, since the last time the Lions saw the Packers, rookie Dontayvion Wicks has emerged as another big-play weapon for Love, recording three grabs of 27 or more yards in last Sunday's win over the Los Angeles Chargers.



"We can't give up explosives," Lions coach Dan Campbell said on Monday. "If you're able to get some explosives up in the pass game, it's going to open your run game up. I think that's the big thing for us, we've got to play this top down. We can't give up any of these chunk plays, because they are having some success with those."

Campbell noted the biggest difference between the last time the Lions saw Love and how he's playing coming into this week's matchup is the Packers' QB is connecting more consistently on big plays. And if the Week 4 outing was the quarterback at his worst, he's been closer to his best during this recent three-game stretch, where he's twice posted passer ratings above 100 sandwiched around his best QBR showing on the season.



Defensively through 10 games, the Lions have conceded 31 pass plays longer than 20 yards. They surrendered two such throws against Chicago last week, including a 39-yard touchdown from Justin Fields to D.J. Moore.

On that snap, Moore appeared to beat the one-on-one coverage of cornerback Jerry Jacobs, but Fields explained after the game the play design was built to take advantage of Lions safety Kerby Joseph, a noted playmaker who has a propensity to abandon his deep responsibilities to cheat on shallower crossing patterns. That also showed up in the early stages of the team's last loss, a 38-6 thumping at the hand of the Baltimore Ravens.



If the Lions are intent on taking away the deep parts of the field from Love, it will be imperative for their safeties, especially Joseph, to stay back to provide over-the-top support for the team's cornerbacks.

"Look, some quarterbacks, as they go, they're watching the tape and they believe they can move you just with their head and eyes and feel like you'll really react hard that way," Campbell said. "I think Kerby is a pretty smart player. ...Kerby is cerebral enough to understand when he's being messed with, most of the time, and when he's not. I'm not worried about that.



"There are things that can come up, but this (Moore touchdown) is something he'll learn from," Campbell said. "And I've also seen Kerby bait quarterbacks into doing some things they shouldn't do. That could go either way a little bit, but Kerby will be fine."

Joseph has six career interceptions, including two in the past three games. Half of those six picks have come against the Packers, with all three coming off the arm of future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers.



jdrogers@detroitnews.com

@Justin_Rogers