Detroit Lions Week 17 report card: A complete thrashing of the Bears

The Detroit Lions utterly dominated the Chicago Bears by a score of 41-10, and here’s our report card for their performance on Sunday.

Coming off their worst performance of the season, the Detroit Lions’ playoff chances had taken a turn for the worse. The only hope they had was to win out and get some help along the way. The first obstacle in their way was the Chicago Bears, and it ended up hardly being an obstacle.

It was refreshing to have a stress-free game in the final home game of the year. After a rocky opening quarter, the Lions went on a 34-0 run.  They thoroughly dismantled the Bears on both sides of the ball for the final three quarters.

A week ago there weren’t many positive things to say about the game in Carolina. Now this week, there aren’t many negative things to say. It was a near-perfect game in the final home game of the season.

Detroit Lions Week 17 report card: Easily taming the toothless Bears

Rushing offense: 5/5 stars 

The ground game emphatically bounced back against the Bears. Both Jamaal Williams and D’Andre Swift found a ton of success running between the tackles, as well as to the outside. Swift especially shined in this game, doing a phenomenal job of getting north-south decisively more often. He showed a decisiveness that had been absent since the opening few games of the season.

At the end of the game, Detroit had 265 rushing yards as they averaged 6.8 yards per carry. That is exactly what Dan Campbell wanted to do to this Bears team, lean on the offensive line and play smash-mouth football. To draw more connections to the bounce-back after the loss in Carolina, the Lions did to the Bears what the Panthers did to the Lions in Week 16. They punched the Bears in the mouth, and Chicago had no response.

Passing offense: 5/5 stars

The Lions’ passing attack has had more productive games this season, but this was an incredibly efficient game. Jared Goff and the receivers came through when they were needed, and they limited mistakes.

The passing game opened up thanks to the dominant ground game (as well as the Bears’ defense being very bad). Detroit got pretty much whatever they wanted offensively all day. The end result was another notch in the belt of an offense that’s been one of the best in franchise history.

Best offensive player(s): Everyone

Worst offensive player(s): No one

Nothing to really complain about here. As mentioned, Swift was absolutely incredible on Sunday. Jamaal Williams had a monster day and crept closer to Barry Sanders’ franchise record of 16 rushing touchdowns in a season. The receivers were all good, the offensive line was dominant. Special shout-out to Penei Sewell–he was tasked with getting downfield to block on multiple plays and he came through big time.

It was truly a dominant effort from the entire offense. No one dragged the unit down, everyone complimented each other with their play.

Run defense: 3/5 stars

The game started off about as poorly as it could have for the Lions’ run defense. Chicago ran for 129 yards in the first quarter, with over 100 coming from quarterback Justin Fields. Everything seemed to be setting up for a dismal game defending the run.

Then something incredible happened, the Lions adjusted. The defensive front elevated their play, forced Chicago into more passings situations, and the margin provided by the offense eliminated the run game from the Bears’ offense. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but the front was able to neutralize the run after a disastrous first quarter.

Pass defense: 5/5 stars

Chicago had 30 net passing yards on Sunday. The Detroit Lions had as many sacks (seven) as Fields had completions in the game. As soon as the Lions shut down the run, the Bears couldn’t do anything offensively. After the strong two opening drives, the Bears scored zero points the rest of the way. It was a defensive masterclass in the second half.

A lot of credit goes to the defensive front. We will touch on two of the star rookies in a moment, but there are a lot of guys who deserve recognition. Firstly, Josh Paschal picked up his first two career sacks on Sunday. The first he showed a relentless bull rush from the 4i alignment and collapsed the pocket before wrapping up Fields. On the second he held the contain perfectly and brought Fields down the second he tried to roll out right. John Cominsky has been a revelation pressuring the quarterback all season, and he absolutely needs to be brought back next year. Alim McNeill, Isaiah Buggs, and Benito Jones also all had nice days rushing from the interior.

Best defensive player(s): Aidan Hutchinson, James Houston

Though for all the work the defensive front did Sunday, these two rookies stood out. Hutchinson didn’t have the sacks (though he did get credited with a half-sack), but he did just about everything else. His evolution against mobile quarterbacks has been incredible. He was playing Fields with an incredible amount of discipline off the edge and not falling for the same tricks he did earlier in the season. For good measure he also grabbed his third interception of the season. He had about as complete a game as he could have, he just didn’t have the box score stats his teammates did.

As for Houston, what a find he has been. After his first game without a sack in Carolina, he racked up three against the Bears. Now up to eight in his first six career games, Houston is off to a historic start to his career.

Not bad for a sixth-round pick who didn’t even make the team out of camp. His evolution from the least noticeable player in the edge rotation in the preseason to leading the team, and all NFL rookies, in sacks is quite frankly incredible.

Worst defensive player(s): No one 

Just like the offense, no one dragged the Lions’ defense down on Sunday. Everyone stood together and flipped the script after a poor start. While the defensive line played a major role in this game due to the pass rush and stopping the run, the secondary held up as well when called upon.

Coaching Staff: 5/5 stars

It was very impressive to be able to get the best version of this team to emerge after last week’s butt-kicking. That speaks to the motivator Dan Campbell is, and by extension the entire coaching staff pushing the right buttons. Detroit came to play, and they completely outclassed an inferior opponent in a fashion they should have.

It will take more than a good effort to make the playoffs, and the coordinators will have their hands full preparing for the Packers next week. That said, you can safely assume Detroit will be ready for that game.

Play(s) of the game: D’Andre Swift’s 35-yard run and Jameson Williams’ 40-yard run on back-to-back snaps.

Coming out of the second half, Detroit’s offense got behind the sticks, and was in danger of going three-and-out to start the third quarter. Despite the 24-10 lead, the Lions couldn’t give the Bears any life. Then on back-to-back plays, the two most electric players on the team flipped the field and set up a touchdown to effectively put the game away.

Swift’s run was the more impressive of the two, turning a nothing play into a monster gain on 3rd-and-18. However, Williams’s speed helped the Lions take the momentum of that Swift run and turn it into even more. This is exactly what Lions fans were hoping for with these two on the field at the same time.

Final thoughts:

Detroit still needs some help to make the playoffs, but with the win, they are up to 8-8 and have leapfrogged the Commanders. At the time of this writing the results of the Packers and Seahawks games are still unknown. But it looks like the stage is being set for Lions-Packers Week 18 to be for the final playoff spot in the NFC, which would make for quite the matchup.

All Detroit can do is win their games and hope things fall into place. As a call back to “Hard Knocks”,  Campbell said the 2022 Detroit Lions would be the team that can and will. Halfway through the season that quote was easily made fun of, but not so much anymore.

At 1-6 the Lions needed a near-perfect record the rest of the way to even have a shot at the postseason.