Narratives aplenty!

There are a billion narratives I could choose from to recap the Steelers game. I could go on about the coaching decisions, especially the fake field goal, that could easily be described as the "turning point" in the game.  I could rant and rave about the offense's appearing and disappearing act that resulted in 27 second quarter points and nothing more. Or I could talk about the defense, or the lack thereof it. But I don't want to boil the game down to just one narrative, because that would be the most dishonest way to recap that game. So...let's just talk about them all.

Let's start with the fake field goal just to get it out of the way, because it sounds like that's all anyone wants to talk about. My opinion at the time of the fake was this:

Wow. I don't know what to feel.
— Jeremy Reisman (@DetroitOnLion) November 17, 2013

Now that I've had a night to think it over, here's what I think: I don't know how to feel. I do think the benefit of potentially going up 10 instead of 7 outweighs the cost of being up 4 instead of 7. However, I'm not sure it was the right time and place to pull that maneuver. Actually, it's obvious it wasn't. But I only know that information in hindsight. Overall, it was a gutsy call that didn't work out. The head coach is always going to take the heat for that. But, personally, I won't lose any sleep over it.

The fake field goal doesn't concern me much, because my personal mission as a fan/blogger isn't to find out who's to blame. The loss happened. That's the reality we live in. No amount of second-guessing and scapegoating will bring back that win. YOU NEED TO FORGET ABOUT PITTSBURGH, CHERYL, AND LIVE YOUR LIFE! The fake field goal will not lose this team the division. They are still in first place and still control their own destiny. So let's start a more meaningful discussion and focus on what may affect that destiny going forward.

The secondary. Oh boy, the secondary. Going into this game, I thought Ben Roethlisberger would be Ben Roethlisberger and hold on to the ball forever and get eaten alive by the front four. But Big Ben came out slinging that ball as quickly as he could, and no one in the back seven could stop him. The defensive line did all they could, but the secondary never gave them enough time to get to the quarterback.

No one in the secondary is playing consistently good football. Not one soul. The closest thing that unit has to a good defender is Glover Quin. And of course, he went out with an injury late in the game, at which point the Steelers drove down the field with no resistance. Louis Delmas is playing the worst football of his career right now. Chris Houston has been much more Mr. Hyde than Dr. Jekyll lately. Rashean Mathis has been just about as good as you can expect a mid-preseason acquisition to be. But the nickle corner position is a mess with Bill Bentley out. Darius Slay is obviously not ready, while Don Carey is clearly not the man for the job.

The Lions are getting worse at defending the pass as the season rolls on. Through the first four weeks, quarterbacks were averaging just a 69.1 passer rating. Since then, they are averaging a rating of 103.6. Opponents are learning that the best way to neutralize the pass rush is to get rid of the ball quickly. It worked for Cincinnati, it worked for the the Cowboys (in the second half), and it certainly worked for Big Ben, who put up season high numbers in touchdowns, passer rating, and QBR against the Lions.

But secondary aside, another huge problem with the Lions is their inconsistent offense, and it all boils down to execution: the dropped passes, the fumbles, the overthrows. The Lions had every opportunity to march down the field but opted to trip over their own feet instead. The most disappointing -- and simultaneously frustrating -- part of it is the people that are shooting themselves in the foot are often the same people that carry this team on their back. Reggie Bush has given the offense a much-needed extra dimension, but his fumbles and drops always seem to come at the exact wrong time. Matthew Stafford is a hero and our Lord and Savior...until he throws a ball needlessly off his back foot and airmails it directly into the arms of a safety. Even the untouchable Calvin Johnson managed to drop a fourth down pass in this game.

But these inconsistencies are nothing new. They were there last year, culminating in a 4-12 season. They were even there in 2011, when the Lions went to the playoffs (remember the first halves of nearly every game?). The Lions have proven that they can both win in spite of these problems and lose because of them.

The difference this year is that the Lions have more weapons than they have ever had. Last year, they collapsed after losing receiver after receiver. The offense remains relatively healthy at this point in the year (yeah, yeah, knock on wood), and they should be getting Nate Burleson back very soon. Hopefully with him comes some stability and consistency.

The defensive problems are much tougher to fix. We can hope that Bentley's imminent return will help turn things around, and we can cross our fingers that Quin is okay. But if we're being honest with ourselves, it is clear this will be the Lions' Kryptonite. That doesn't mean they won't win any more games; they've proven they can do so with defensive breakdowns (see: Cowboys game). That does mean, however, that there will be no cakewalks for the rest of the year, despite the easy schedule. As long as the opponent has that speedy receiver that can make defenders miss or a quarterback who can bait the secondary into a mistake, the Lions will struggle. They may still win, but they'll struggle.

Three Days Late "Live" Blog: Lions at Bears

Film note: The coaches film at Soldier Field is notoriously horrible. Unfortunately, that makes analysis a bit tougher than normal. So if I'm lighter on observations this week, that's why.

First quarter:

14:16 - Not terrible coverage by Rashean Mathis on Chicago's first third-down conversion of the day. It's a bit of a mismatch between him and Brandon Marshall, but give a lot of credit to Jay Cutler for putting that ball in a perfect spot where Mathis has no chance of batting it down.

12:45 - On the touchdown, Chicago designed a very nice fake that opened up a lot of field for Marshall.

The play looks very much like a quick wide receiver screen. Marshall fakes blocking down field, while Cutler looks immediately for the quick pass. This brings Louis Delmas way down the field.

The result is Marshall in one-on-one coverage with Darius Slay and a whole lot of empty field ahead. Marshall gets inside leverage on Slay, and makes an athletic catch. I don't blame Slay, as he was actually in very good coverage, but he couldn't knock the ball away from Marshall.

Still, a very poor way to start the game.

11:59 - In case you blinked and missed him, here's visual evidence that Montell Owens played a down for the Detroit Lions once.

9:29 - Excellent blitz pickup by Joique Bell on third down. Two Bears linebackers threaten to blitz up the A-gap before the snap. Only one comes blitzing, and Bell immediately notices and clears out a big path for Matthew Stafford to step up into. Good to see Stafford not panic immediately with an A-gap blitz, like he has in the past.

8:49 - Dominica Raiola is having a rough first drive, especially in run blocking.

6:48 - You guys think Reggie would have scored here?

6:01 - Kris Durham with a dirty move for the touchdown. He faked a quick slant, than swam over-top of his defender and ran an uncontested post-route.

Good to see the Lions answer quickly and not let the lead ever grow any bigger.

5:11 - Weird wrinkle that may only interest me, the Bears lined up with 6 offensive lineman on this play. The sixth man, who is listed as a guard on Chicago's official website, was lined up outside the left tackle and actually ran a route. The ball wasn't thrown to him, but I enjoyed watching a 300+ pound man run a seam-route up the middle of the defense.

5:07 - Bad luck for Ndamunkong Suh with the facemask. Willie Young was about to sack Cutler anyway.

4:42 - DeAndre Levy: Screen Killer. Just look how quickly Levy notices the play.

Cutler hasn't even cocked his arm back to throw the ball, and Levy is already booking it to the intended receiver. His quick recognition allows him to get to the receiver before a lineman can block him, and although he doesn't ultimately make the tackle, he blows up the play enough to let his teammates catch up.

4:00 - And Levy follows up that play by forcing an end around to go extremely wide and eventually out of bounds. The guy is playing out of his mind.

2:19 - 3 things:
1) I don't know how this ball was not intercepted after deflecting off of Calvin Johnson's hands.
2) This was a pretty awful throw by Stafford.
3) Although a pass to Calvin is never a bad idea AND he was open, a pass to Reggie would have been easier, and probably would have picked up more. The linebacker that was on him, bit on the play-action, and Calvin cleared that side of the field.

1:26 - I know the offensive line got a lot of credit for this game, but they were not good in the first quarter. The Lions only averaged 3.0 a carry on six rushes in the first stanza.

Second quarter:

11:51 - That is an absolutely huge tackle by Chris Houston. He gets around the offensive lineman and gets just enough of Matt Forte, who is not easy to bring down, to tackle him before the sticks.

...why are they bringing in Rocky freaking McIntosh?

11:04 - ROCKY FREAKIN MCINTOSH!!!!

Also, congratulation to the referee crew for the worst measurement ever. They said it couldn't be done.

10:24 - That was an awfully generous first down given to the Lions on a Bell run that looked at least a yard short of the sticks.

8:23 - Alright, let's talk about the fourth down decision. The Lions basically had three choices: Attempt a 49-yard field goal, go for it, or punt. If you think punting was the best option here, click the "x" at the top of your browser and never come back. I think a field goal here is probably a 50/50 proposition. Not to take anything away from David Akers, it's just not an easy thing for kickers to do. According to the New York Times, from 2000-2005, kickers at Soldier Field had the worst kicking percentage of any venue and a 49-yarder is no gimme.

Going for it on 4th and short has the highest probability of success. I've seen estimates as high as 62%. I think going for it here was a no-brainer. If you want to argue with the play call, that's a bit more understandable, but remember that the Lions had nothing going on the ground at this point, and Calvin was open:

6:42 - The Bears have now converted a 3rd-and-6, 3rd-and-10 (via penalty), third-and-8, and another 3rd-and-8. That's insanely frustrating as a fan, and I don't think it's too fun for Gunther Cunningham. The issue is a mixture of the pass rush getting there a moment too late, and the secondary not playing tight enough. On this conversion, it was Delmas as the culprit again:

As Alshon Jeffery made the cut in his post route, Delmas turned his back to run with him, thinking he was running a fly route. Delmas is forced to turn around, giving Jeffery a huge cushion and an easy first down.

5:13 - GRRRRRR. Add another 3rd-and-8 conversion to the list. This is just a huge mismatch of Slay on Jeffery.

2:00 - Ok. This is enough. Someone really needs to tell Jim Schwartz he can use his timeouts on defense in the first half. It's the two minute warning and the Bears have the ball 2nd and 5 at the Lions 14 yard line. The Lions have three timeouts. The Bears can only run, at the max, five more offensive plays (2nd down, 3rd down, 1st down, 2nd down, 3rd down), assuming there are no penalties. Chances are the Bears are going to try and throw it at least a few times trying to get a touchdown. So it makes sense to start using some timeouts when the Bears are running the ball to stop the clock and give yourself time to respond before the end of the half. Here's how it should have played out:

2nd and 5. Bears run for 7 yards. Lions call timeout at 1:54.
1st and goal. Bears run for 3 yards. Lions call timeout at 1:48.
2nd and goal. Bears throw interception. Lions get the ball with 1:41 left and a timeout.

Instead, the Lions failed to call a timeout in BOTH situations, letting NEARLY 80 SECONDS run off the clock unnecessarily.

Thankfully, it seems like I'm no longer screaming to myself about this overlooked issue. Grantland crucified Schwartz for this, too. Thanks to Sean Yuile at Pride of Detroit for giving me the heads up about that. 

Side note: on this drive Suh had two hurries, one tackle for loss, and a batted pass that resulted in an interception. Beast.

Third quarter:

15:00 - True story, I missed the opening kickoff to the second half due to some poor remote time management from my friend. Therefore, I didn't actually believe the Lions had a 34-yard kick return until this moment right now.

13:35 - Huge blocks from Ladrian Waddle, Rob Sims and Larry Warford on the long Bush run:

13:02 - I can't believe they took so long to review this touchdown. Wait, did I say "I can't believe...?" I meant to say, how awfully predictable.

11:25 - Offensive touchdown then a defensive three-and-out. Not a bad way to start the second half.

9:52 - It's nice to see Devin Taylor create some pressure from the outside. Young man's got talent.

9:48 - I can't know this for sure, but it looks to me that, again, Delmas tried to jump a short route, leaving his assignment. This left Marshall one-on-one deep, which is trouble for Mathis.

This was not a very good game for Delmas.

Side note: Austin Lane was tackled on this play in the backfield.

8:56 - Highly ineffective blitz: DRINK!

8:11 - I really like this third-down play by the Bears. The shovel pass completely fools Suh in the backfield, but once again, it's Levy who saves the day.

Levy has such a jump on the play, that he draws two linemen. This frees up Stephen Tulloch (who also had a monster game) to make the tackle before allowing a first down.

4:43 - What an outstanding play from Don Carey. He shows his speed and elusiveness quickly closing in on Matt Forte, while avoiding a block from the pulling guard. Impressive athleticism overall.

 Fourth quarter:

15:00 - Interesting third-down call from Scott Linehan. The Lions have Bell and Bush in the backfield. One of them is getting the ball:

Both players immediate release into the same routes on opposite sides.

The wide receivers basically run dummy routes away from the sidelines, hoping to create space for the two backs. Stafford looks to Bush and overthrows him. I think this is the wrong read. At the bottom of the screen, Calvin is clearing all sorts of room for Bell, who could have easily picked up the first down here.

14:11 - Here's where things start to get chippy. Nick Fairley may have crossed the line with bringing Cutler down late, but he was also being pushed towards him, and did not slam Cutler down nor come down with all of his weight. Then Kyle Long comes in and throws a forearm at Fairley and somehow avoids a penalty. The FOX announcer then proceeds to praise Long for the obvious personal foul.

14:07 - Good coverage by Carey, but a better pass and catch by the Bears.

11:59 - Stafford passes on an open Joseph Fauria to try and thread a needle to Calvin. It does not work.

11:08 - Stafford's interception was nothing more than a bad pass. It was a tougher throw than it looked, but Matt airmailed it to a point where a fully-extended Megatron couldn't get it. That's no good.

10:57 - Once again, it's Levy who makes a great play, forcing the Bears into a holding penalty:

Levy comes on a well-timed blitz.

He happens to be attacking the exact position of the running lane, and the Bears lineman has no choice but to hook him and hope the ref doesn't see. Luckily for the Lions, he does see.

9:30 - To me, this doesn't seem like the same rule that screwed Calvin out of a touchdown three years ago. As Jeffery went to the ground, contact with the defender and the ground caused possession to be temporarily lost. That makes sense to me as an incomplete pass.

Calvin's non-TD was different. Calvin corralled the ball, hit the turf, maintained possession, and AS HE WAS GETTING UP, he put the ball on the ground. This is where the rule makes no sense. There is nothing clear about when "the process of the catch" is completed. Is it when you hit the ground? Is it when you stand back up? There is no clear rule.

7:53 - The facemask giveth...

7:23 - ...and taketh away.

6:33 - Greedy Stafford. As the play breaks down, Bell is wide open underneath. He is almost guaranteed 5-10 yards, which wouldn't be enough for a first down, but it would be valuable yardage to shorten Akers' field goal attempt.

Instead, Stafford opts to throw a low-percentage, across-the-body, jump ball to Calvin. Not only is this a tough play to make, but it is also a big risk in throwing an interception, which would obviously take a field goal attempt completely off the board. This is where Stafford's over-reliance on Johnson can hurt the team.

6:25 - Akers haters. Come out and playyyyeyyayyyyyy.

5:28 - I love seeing the Lions come out on this drive with play-action. The Bears bit hard, leaving plenty of space for Jeremy Ross to get open.

4:05 - Excellent protection gave Stafford the time to check down to his third read on this crucial third down play.

2:28 - As hard as I've been on the coaching staff for their mangling of time management at the end of halves, I have to give them credit here. They could have ran the ball three times to end the drive, but they came out throwing. They knew the Bears could stop the clock anyway, so why not try and get into the endzone. And what a gorgeous pass that was from Stafford.

2:18 - Never have I ever feared the words "Josh McCown" as much as I did in this moment.

2:13 - Stupid Nick Fairley.

2:07 - Good Nick Fairley. This is the world we live in, I'm afraid.

1:50 - Fourth-and-1 and the Lions decide to call another ineffective blitz. Credit goes to Long for picking up Levy, but the Lions' inability to get a free pass-rusher on the blitz is absolutely frustrating.

0:52 - Good pressure by Andre Fluellen and Willie Young to force a throw-away.

0:47 - Blerg. McCown smartly steps up in the collapsing pocket and Mathis can't keep up with Marshall for that long. This is why I was afraid of McCown.

0:40 - There is no good, definitive replay of the helmet-to-helmet contact from Young here, so I have no opinion on it. I will say that there was no way Young could have stopped himself from hitting McCown, but if he did go high, that's on him.

0:40 - Stupid Nick Fairley: 1. Good Nick Fairley: 2.

Ballgame.

Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions

I woke up this morning and the Detroit Lions were still in first place. It wasn't a dream. The Lions weren't disqualified in the middle of the night by some technicality. Yesterday actually happened.

Yet my damn subconscious cannot seem to come to terms with this fantastic reality. Literally my first thought when I opened my eyes this morning was that Matthew Stafford had somehow broken his collarbone, too. I don't know why this thought popped into my head, but I just knew that if I opened up twitter, my timeline would be filled with villagers screaming and gouging their own eyes out as the town burnt to the ground. This team has done a number on me.

But screw that. I'm done with that. The last time the Lions were in first place this late in the season, I was enjoying awkwardly experiencing my first year as a teenager. The horrors and monstrosities that followed for the next decade happened to a different team. They were witnessed by a different me. This is different. This is now.

I know the Murphy's Law part of my brain will always be there, spreading panic and lies at every opportunity it gets. But, today, I am performing a symbolic lobotomy. No more worrying. No more doubt. No more irrational fear. This is a team that should, and will, win the NFC North this year.

I'm not just baptizing myself in the Honolulu Blue River this week, I'm doing a cannonball in that mother-effer. I'm swallowing gulps by the mouthful in a way that would make Augustus Gloop look at me shamefully. I'm all in on this team. I'm buying playoff stock. I'm doing whatever metaphor it takes to let you know: I believe in this team, and I'm not looking back.

A fun thing for fans to do when their team wins, especially against a rival like Chicago, is to go to their fans' website and partake in a little schadenfreude. But, today, I get no pleasure watching the Bears fans devour themselves. That is beneath me, beneath us. They are the explosion we are walking away from without turning to watch. Everyone else in the league will be shocked and horrified by the carnage we left in our path. They will speak of broken collarbones and groins torn to pieces. They will criticize our savagery, and try to take our earnings. But we will continue to walk forward. Because we're walking towards something greater, and we've got another building to blow up.

_________

Game notes:

- This wasn't a particularly satisfying game in any way. There were no big plays on either side of the ball for either team. The Lions did not win in a convincing fashion by any means, and it was disappointing to see their inability to put away the Bears when they had several chances.

- None of that really matters though. It was a division win on the road against an above-average team. That's big.

- I was pretty disappointed to see Stafford fall into some bad habits in this game. Specifically, his over-reliance on Calvin Johnson. Calvin saw almost exactly half of Stafford's targets in this game (17 of 35). Matthew went 6-17 for 83 yards, 2 TDs and an INT when throwing to Megatron. That's a passer rating of 66.5. I know Calvin pretty much won the game, and I know he's the best receiver in football, but the Lions offense is unstoppable when Stafford is spreading the ball.

- Expanding on that point, in the Lions' three scoring drives, Calvin had just five catches for 64 yards.

- After a disappointing start, the Lions really got things going on the ground in the second half. Their final scoring drive was perfectly balanced: 4 rushes for 29 yards, 5 passes for 45 yards.

- The Lions were clearly the benefactor of an ailing Jay Cutler in the second half. Cutler completely stopped throwing anything further than 10 yards down the field late in the game. But a lot of credit goes to the Lions defense for rendering the Bears' running game completely moot and turning the Bears' offense into a zero-dimension threat.

- DeAndre Levy continues to have a Pro Bowl-worthy year. Not only was his interception huge, but he also drew a holding in the fourth quarter, negating at touchdown. This guy has made huge strides this year, and is on his way to becoming a household name.

- Coaching notes: I'm going to get more into this in my "Live" blog, but coaching decisions this week were again a mixed bag. I was for the Lions going for it early in the game, but for the second straight week, the Lions failed to use timeouts on defense at the end of the first half. Again, it was clear they were geting the ball back, and they could have saved at least 40-60 seconds with timeouts. Instead, they got the ball back with less than 30 seconds and sat on it.

- However, I was absolutely delighted with the offensive play-calling for the Lions' final drive. At the end of the drive, the Lions could have ran the ball three times, forcing the Bears to use all of their timeouts, but the Lions made their priority six points rather than bleeding the clock. As it turned out, those points were much more valuable than bleeding clock, as the would have had plenty of time to score even without those timeouts.

- Nick Fairley's stop on the two-point conversion attempt was both the biggest play and the entire story of the game.

Lions Victory GIF Dump: Bears Edition...AGAIN

It was a pretty ugly game. Not a lot happen. So let's just watch Nick Fairley stop his way to FIRST PLACE until the end of eternity. (via SBNation)

And it's time to bust out the Solo-First-Place-In-The-Second-Half-of-the-Season champagne....

These Are Confusing Times

From the moment Matthew Stafford leaped over the unsuspecting Cowboys defensive line, it has been a strange time to be a Lions fan. Just digesting the victory alone proved to be a puzzling experience. Was I supposed to focus on the dominant yardage totals or fear the repetitive mistakes and turnovers as ominous foreshadowing?

In the heat of the moment, I consumed every smattering of optimism I could find. I was manic in every sense of the word. My eyes were dilated, my heart soared, and my expectations were endless.

But as the week wore on, I finally stopped clicking on Stafford youtube videos. The euphoria of Stafford Magic slowly left my blood stream. The Lions were still 5-3 with a winning record in the division. But the NFC playoff race looked dim. The Panthers had actually usurped the Lions for the final wild card spot, and the Lions were on the outside looking in. The situation in the division looked even more bleak. The Packers, already with a win over the Lions, had the second-easiest schedule going forward. And the Bears, reportedly, were getting back Jay Cutler earlier than expected. My heart sunk knowing that the Lions' work was nowhere near done.

Then there was the issue of the Monday Night Football game. The Lions fandom was split on who to root for: the division-leading Packers or the streaking Bears? I vehemently screamed to the masses that the Lions should be targeting a wild-card spot first and foremost, and if they were to really catch the Packers for the division (which I didn't think they really could), they could do so without a Chicago victory. The Bears must be sacrificed in front of a national audience for the good of the land.

But that did not happen. The Bears emerged victorious and created this mess:

 via http://espn.go.com/nfl/standings

A three-way tie for the division lead. It's both beautiful and mortifying. This is the latest in the season the Lions have led the division since 1999. But it also makes this week's game in Chicago extremely crucial. And no one likes to rely on a game at Soldier Field when the stakes are so high.

Most fans, however, have met this develop with wide-eyed optimism. They just look at the word "Detroit" atop the standings and become hypnotized by it's beauty. It's hard not to. It's a glorious vision that we are not accustomed to as Lions fans.

But I spent the immediate hours in the aftermath of the Bears victory warning that the current standings, while undeniably beautiful, was fool's gold. The Lions still had two extremely difficult division games that could not only bury them in the division standings, but in the wild card race, as well. I went person-to-person and tried to shake them from the spell that the words "division leader" had cast upon them.

Then the Aaron Rodgers news came about. One cracked collarbone and everything changed. The Packers now find themselves without the best player in the NFL for 4-6 weeks. The have a very real risk of dropping out of contention before he can return. Though the upcoming schedule isn't very daunting (vs. Eagles, at NYG, vs. Vikings), Green Bay is nowhere near the same team without Rodgers behind center.

And now the Bears game has a completely different look to it. Rather than a chance to lose the tiebreaker and a game on a potential wild card opponent, it's now a game where the Lions could essentially take a two-game lead on, perhaps, their biggest challenge to the NFC North crown. Even better, early reports of Cutler's return may have been a bit premature.

I have to admit, I don't think I have ever truly given this team a chance to win the NFC North. But I'm starting to get a whiff of that intoxicating blue kool-aid. I can feel its pheromones running through my veins. And while my untrustworthy psyche -- built from decades of losses and disappointments -- tries to fight back, it's starting to lose that battle. I'm edging towards the banks of the river, and I'm licking my lips. There's a voice in the back of my head screaming "DON'T, YOU IDIOT! YOU'RE GOING TO DROWN!" But there's an equally loud voice coming from further back yelling, "WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP FOR ONCE AND DRINK?!?"

These are confusing times.