Detroit Lions Weblog

Week 2:Bears vs. Lions

The Lions are riding high off of last Sunday’s victory against Green Bay. Week 2 will be a big game for the Lions because, at least on paper, they should have a distinct personnel advantage over the Bears. That being said, the Lions are missing a major component to their success, FB Corey Schlesinger, and may also be without another primary component in kicker Jason Hanson. It appears that a decision will be made on Friday whether or not Hanson will be able to kick against the Bears or if the team will sign a replacement kicker for one week.

On offense, the Lions will be facing a very difficult task against the aggressive Bears defense. The Lions will want to establish Kevin Jones early in the ground game. The Bears, with their capable cornerbacks, Charles Tillman and Jerry Azumah, will load up the box with their strong safety Mike Green and try to neutralize Kevin Jones. If Jones is slowed by the Bears front seven, the Lions will be forced to rely upon Joey Harrington beating the aforementioned corners on the outside in the passing game. The Lions did attempt to throw the ball downfield more often against Green Bay but still have not attempted to spread out opposing defenses with three and four wide receiver sets. However, with the Bears quick playmaking defensive ends, Alex Brown and Adewale Ogunleye, the Lions may have little opportunity to spread the defense because they will have to utilize a lot of max-protect formations with the backs and tight ends (limiting their ability to utilize three and four wide receivers) helping the offensive linemen to protect Joey Harrington. The max-protect offensive sets will also help the Lions to neutralize the Bears blitzing, which I expect will be more frequent that what the Lions saw against the Packers last week. Kevin Jones and Shawn Bryson will have to do very good in blitz pick-up, the Bears Head Coach Lovie Smith, if you remember, was the architect of the Rams pressure defense that soundly embarassed the Lions offense in the preseason. In the past, the Lions have had success running straight at Brian Urlacher and I am sure that the Lions will attempt to beat the Bears again by overpowering them, even if DT Tommie Harris and NT Ian Scott are quite good at clogging up the middle. The most important factor when playing the Bears defense is to not turn the ball over(The Bears lead the NFL in points scored by their defense last season). If the Lions can win the field position battle and not give the Bears offense opportunities to capitalize on turnovers, they will win because the Bears offense is so limited.

On Defense, the Lions will follow a similar game plan to the Bears. They will attempt to eliminate Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson from the Bears offensive game plan by loading up around the line of scrimmage and daring rookie QB Kyle Orton to beat them. If the Lions gain any sort of sizable lead the Bears will be in real trouble because then the Lions will be able to blitz Orton and disguise coverages in order to try and confuse him. Hopefully, the week one performance of the Lions defensive line will be replicated. If they consistently stuff the run and pressure Orton the Bears will be in a lot of trouble. WR Muhsin Muhammad will be a handful for the Lions secondary, in all likelihood, he will often be double-teamed or bracketed with safety help over the top so that he is not able to beat the Lions secondary deep. The real challenge for the Lions will be limiting young WR’s Justin Gage and Bernard Berrian from hurting them when the secondary focuses it’s energies on stopping Muhammad. Of special concern is Bernard Berrian, who is very quick and may be able to take advantage of the relative lack of speed in the Lions secondary.

I feel that the Lions will win this game, but it will be far from easy. With Jason Hanson out of the game(if he is unable to play), the Lions will be very pressured to score early and gain a sizable lead. The last thing they will want is for the game to be close and have to depend on a kicker like Remy Hamilton or Wade Richey to have to win the game for them. I think that in the end, the Bears offense will not be effective enough against the improved Lions defense and the Bears defense will be overexposed having to spend too much time on the field and will be worn down from consistently being pounded by Kevin Jones and the Lions rushing attack. Joey Harrington will not lose this game and the Lions receivers will make enough big plays for the Lions to win 24-13.