This week’s Detroit Lions film review was not a happy experience. Some weeks when the Lions lose, there are enough positives and circumstantial developments that watching the All-22 can make me feel better about the loss. Not this week, not this team’s performance in Chicago. If anything, I felt even worse about the Lions’ 28-13 loss to the Bears.
Normally I do the film review package as a “What I learned from…” piece, but this week I wanted to instead focus more on the “quick hits” portion of those breakdowns.
Jared Goff had a rough day
Okay, that’s patently obvious. Goff didn’t play well. But it was the manner of how he struggled that is concerning.
I’ll oversimplify here: Goff’s steadfast refusal to even try and throw the ball down the field made life way too easy for Chicago’s defense. And while the pass protection wasn’t up to the usual Detroit standards, Goff did indeed have opportunities to try and challenge Chicago down the field.
The Bears zone execution deserves some credit. Their linebackers and safeties communicated and flowed very well together. They executed the plan of not letting Goff get Sam LaPorta and Amon-Ra St. Brown on the intermediate routes in the middle of the field where the Lions offense (and Goff) is at its best.
I don’t know how much influence Ben Johnson had on the choices from Goff. It’s unclear whether the quarterback was directed to keep things short and simple or if Goff took it upon himself to ignore anything beyond 12 yards down the field. Given the pass protection and his history, I’m inclined to put that more on Goff. However, it sure looked like reading the field short-to-long was the game plan going in. That was a very poor tactical choice by the Lions offense collectively.
The Ifeatu Melifonwu experiment did not work
Melifonwu was something of a surprise starter against Chicago, replacing veteran Tracy Walker in the lineup.
Almost from the get-go, it was not a good choice by the coaching staff. After making one very nice run read on Chicago’s opening drive, Melifonwu showed why he is either a healthy scratch or plays only on special teams most of the time.
Take Chicago’s first touchdown, a designed QB keeper by Justin Fields around left tackle. Melifonwu is the backside safety after he and Kerby Joseph rotate into a split look. Joseph gets pulled away (far too easily) by a fake and route, leaving Melifonwu as the backside agent of chase to go get Fields.
Except Melifonwu doesn’t move. He remains within a one-yard radius of his positioning at the snap until Fields is inside the 5-yard line. It’s clearly a run. There aren’t any routes sent his way to hold him in place. He just…does nothing.
A similar thing happened on the 4th-down touchdown debacle. Melifonwu is Jerry Jacobs’ over-the-top and inside help on the route by D.J. Moore. Jacobs gets beaten immediately on the play by Chicago’s most dangerous weapon. Melifonwu’s reaction? He doesn’t move, period, until the ball is in the air. I doubt he could have made a play even if he reacted in a timely fashion, but it sure would have been nice to see if that was the case.
Pass rush was very good. Finishing plays, not so much...
Generating pressure on the opposing quarterback has been a hot-button topic in Lions land lately. Against Chicago, they were largely successful.
The Lions brought guys on the blitz. They did some creative twists and stunts up front (more on that in a bit). Both Okwara brothers had impressive pass-rush win rates that showed on game film, as did Aidan Hutchinson and John Cominsky (his best game of ’23 by far). They pressured and even hit Fields a lot; Detroit’s nine QB hits matched their season-high (Raiders game) and was tied for second in the league in Week 14.
Alas, the pressure didn’t really produce the desired impact. The nifty Fields consistently found escape lanes and avoided going down on first contact well. The process of generating the pressure, notably blitzing, also sacrificed run containment on Fields and took away from the coverage help that the defensive backs desperately needed in the game. There were too many instances in this game of creating pressure but not finishing being worse than not getting pressure at all. Like this one:
Lions rush 6 and miss 3 potential tackles. Players have to do more. Can't blow those opportunities https://t.co/2Uh2TguUJX
— Jeff Risdon (@JeffRisdon) December 10, 2023
Hero ball didn't work
This reflects on the above pass rush segment, and it’s part of the challenge that Chicago and Fields specifically presents. The frustration in not finishing plays led to some undisciplined “hero ball” from the Lions defense,
The most notorious example came from Aidan Hutchinson on the game-sealing Bears touchdown.
JUSTIN FIELDS STRIKES AGAIN 👀
(via @NFL)pic.twitter.com/H1wreS7R6E
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) December 10, 2023
Hutchinson acknowledged that he improvised the stunt move here. Willingly giving up the edge was catastrophic. Fields saw it immediately and exploited Hutchinson’s overzealous mistake for a touchdown.
There was a growing antsiness to Hutchinson’s play throughout the game. It was true of Alex Anzalone and Derrick Barnes as well. Trying to extricate the ball on a tackle attempt and not getting the tackle or the ball, that happened too much. In their vigor to make the big play, aka the hero ball, they gave up responsibilities that their teammates couldn’t cover.
Taylor Decker didn't look healthy
He wasn’t on the pregame injury report, but there was very clearly something “off” with Taylor Decker all game. It makes perfect sense now that he has missed practice time with a back injury since the loss.
The sack Decker gave up to Yannick Ngakoue was a straightforward bull rush by a player not noted for his power. But Decker just couldn’t anchor or show any “sand in the pants,” getting caught too upright. That happened a few times in the game, and that’s not the Taylor Decker we’ve seen playing left tackle at a pretty high level for most of the last two seasons.
Having said that, I thought Decker’s run blocking was solid. Really, the whole line run-blocked pretty well — better than they were in pass protection…which makes Ben Johnson’s decision to abandon the run on first down even more spurious.
Officiating
The officials didn’t decide the game, but their impact was negatively felt for Detroit in a couple of questionable instances.
First, the Fields intentional grounding non-call. The crew deemed that the hit on Fields forced the throw to nowhere and no one. I Zapruder-filmed this play probably 30 times and let’s just say I disagree with that officiating assertion.
Second, though it technically happened first, was a brutal personal foul call on Alex Anzalone. Clean hit on a player still toeing in-bounds. Thankfully a subsequent sack by Jalen Reeves-Maybin forced a field goal instead of a touchdown. More JRM please, by the way; his quick reactions and closing speed need to be on the field more.
As for the Graham Glasgow tripping foul, he was guilty. That doesn’t get called most games (and it absolutely happens!) but he somehow got caught. Seemed like the officials were looking for that, perhaps as a heads-up from the Bears?
Isaiah Buggs showed why he's been a healthy scratch
A few year ago, the Bears had an offensive tackle named Gabe Carimi. I used to mock Carimi for constantly being on the ground at the end of plays or even during a play, and I was definitely not alone in poking the bear.
Oh the turntables, or something…
Isaiah Buggs proved to be the defensive tackle version of Carimi in this game. For such a burly guy, Buggs offered very little resistance or anchor on the defensive interior. There were at least two plays where it looked like he fell down as a tactic to get free from the blocking. That crap might work in high school, or even at Alabama when playing Louisiana-Monroe, but it’s not something that should ever be tried at the NFL level.
Brodric Martin showed very little in his extremely limited snaps, but I didn’t note him to be detrimental like I did with Buggs.
