Three Keys to Bears Win Over Lions

The Bears go for their eighth win in nine games against Detroit but if they get this one it could look much different than other wins over the Lions.

Anyone who has been in the Bears locker room repeatedly over the course of this season has seen it.

The attitude remains extremely positive and upbeat among a group of young players who realize the task they perform on a daily basis in practice and weekly in games is different than for some teams.

The Bears under Matt Nagy were pressing at 4-4 or 3-5. These Bears at 3-6, with so many young players, know the pressure is not on to win as much in this first year of a rebuild as it is to learn how to win. They're working toward the goal and the next step seems to be finishing tight games on top instead of simply making them close.

So far they have only found bits and pieces of the success formula, but with Justin Fields running and throwing the way he has been they know what really matters is assembling more defensive talent in the offseason as a complementary piece. In the meantime, it's on them to try and improve to the best of their abilities.

"We call it the microscope-telescope concept," coach Matt Eberflus said. "Right now, we've got to focus on our job, but certainly you want to see where our organization is going, and it's going in the right direction and the guys are positive.

"They can see that we're building a football team that we're all going to be proud of."

They're facing a team Sunday not totally unlike themselves in terms of talent.

The Detroit Lions probably have even better young talent, at least along the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. 

However, Detroit is in the second year of a rebuild and there is only so much patience anyone can have with tear-downs.

At some point, a team needs to start winning or the staff must give way to another one to try and do it better.

Despite their big win over the collapsing Packers, at 2-6 the Lions have consistency problems and have had those all season. It's how they go from leading the league in offense over the season's first four weeks to getting shut out by New England, a team the Bears scored 33 points against.

Here are the three keys to the Bears continuing to learn and ascend by going one more step and winning a close one.

1. Back to the Well

More planned Justin Fields running plays, more Fields scrambles. The Bears need to go back to what is working and that's the run. 

Their offense has to take pressure of their own struggling, undermanned defense with ball control. They've been able to accomplish it and stay in games because Fields picks up first downs on scrambles in manageable down-and-distance situations.

Detroit gave up 90 yards rushing to Jalen Hurts in a loss and he was the leading Eagles ball carrier 17 attempts. They gave up 7 yards a carry and a key touchdown run to Geno Smith in their loss to Seattle. Aaron Rodgers was his team's leading rusher last week in the Green Bay loss and had 40 yards.

The Lions have the league's 31st-ranked run defense regardless of who carries the ball, so the Bears should be able to manage a running attack with conventional means better than last week, when they struggled. Of particular note, they should be able to do it going to the right side because Detroit ranks between 29th and 32nd defending runs behind any blockers from the middle to the right side of the line.

2. Plus One

The Bears must come out winning the turnover battle for this game even if only by plus-one. 

Until last week, the Lions hadn't won when they committed a turnover. And when they did commit one last week, they beat Green Bay by taking it away three times, including two red zone interceptions of Rodgers. Like the Bears, they're too challenged to overcome many turnovers.

Justin Fields has done a better job protecting the ball in recent games after fumbling too often earlier. He got away with an interception on a poor decision late on a play because of offsetting penalties last week.

All of this explains what has happened with turnovers for these teams, but here's why the turnover winner in this game is going to be critical.

The defenses on both sides are going to be overmatched trying to stop either offense. It was that way last week and neither the Bears nor Dolphins committed a turnover, so the game came down to a final drive. 

Fields had the ball moving even against a good Miami defense, and this Lions defense is among the three worst statistically. The same thing could happen here that happened against Miami and Tua Tagovailoa. The Bears didn't even force a punt until late in the game last week.

One turnover in this game stands to put an offense at a total disadvantage, when they know they can't really depend on their defense. 

It can have a completely devastating effect.

3. Blitz Jared Goff

The Bears haven't been a blitzing team. They rank last in the NFL in blitzes at 14% but this is a week to do it.

They're not achieving pressure without Robert Quinn and Roquan Smith and now they're unlikely to have Al-Quadin Muhammad, who wasn't applying a great deal of pressure anyway.

Getting pressure on Goff is critical in this game because, for one, he is an excellent rhythm passer. The other reason is only three quarterbacks have thrown more interceptions than Goff has when under pressure, according to Sportradar. Only Josh Allen, Matt Ryan and Matthew Stafford have thrown more interceptions while under pressure than the seven Goff gave up.

The other reason blitzing can have a better effect against Detroit is the shortage of effective receivers Goff has available. 

Josh Reynolds is out. D.J. Chark and Quintez Cephus already were on injured reserve. Amon-Ra St. Brown is a good target but averages barely over 10 yards a reception. They traded away T.J. Hockenson and blitzing effectively can get Goff searching for targets who haven't been any better getting open and catching passes under pressure than he has been at throwing.

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