DETROIT -- Detroit’s defense suffered from miscommunication issues throughout the game, with its final stand sticking out like a sore thumb in the 16-14 loss to the Chicago Bears on Thanksgiving.
The Bears used an 18-play, 64-yard drive to eat the game’s final 8 minutes, 30 seconds to put the Lions away. They started at their own 21-yard line, gaining six first downs, kicking the game-winning 28-yard field goal at the buzzer. If that weren’t enough, the Lions discovered a new way to put the cherry on top of their loss -- calling consecutive timeouts without a snap, resulting in a 5-yard penalty before third-and-9, while also leaving them with only one chance to stop the clock. Dalton and the Bears moved the chains, kneeled it three times, then kicked the game-winner as time expired.
“They really came out throwing the ball early,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said when asked about the final drive. “They were going to try and loosen up the front and try and open us up and back us up a little bit. Then they came out in the second half and started to run it, did a couple of things. And look, a couple of penalties showed up that killed us. They hurt us. I just go back to this in general. Now, we had too many penalties today, but the penalties, some teams can overcome them and some can’t. We can’t overcome the penalties right now that we’re getting.
“But ultimately, I just -- defensively, I felt like they really hung in there again. And I just-- when you keep your opponent from scoring 16 points or whatever -- which is three weeks in a row -- we have to be able to -- we need to find a way to win that game. So defensively I know that they’re giving us a chance right now.”
While Campbell isn’t wrong, it was once again the defense failing in the final minutes despite another strong performance. The Lions are 0-2-1 while holding their last three opponents to 20 points or less each week. Last week it was Browns running back Nick Chubb putting the game on ice after Campbell elected to punt the team’s final chance away. This week it was a combination of Andy Dalton making plays happen, including a nifty little option-like toss to David Montgomery, while taking advantage of Detroit’s miscommunications and penalties.
It’s not like the Bears were reinventing the wheel on that final drive. It was a heavy dose of Montgomery, with the running back running six times for 17 yards on that game-winning series. Dalton was four for six passing for 36 yards on the winning drive, kneeling three times to set up the field goal. The veteran quarterback hit Damiere Byrd for 12 yards on third-and-5 from Chicago’s 37-yard line, then hit Cole Kmet for 12 yards on second-and-11 on Detroit’s side of the field. He went back to Byrd on the third-and-4 after the timeout penalty for 7 yards, putting the game away with the Lions unable to halt the clock enough to make a difference.
“It’s frustrating,” Lions linebacker Alex Anzalone said. “I feel like defensively we’ve got to stop them. We had the lead and we’ve got to figure out a way to get them off the field, and not score points. That’s really it.”
See below for more from inside the locker room after Detroit’s latest loss:
Lions coach Dan Campbell on what fell apart concerning the defensive communication: “It was a check by what they were doing. So you don’t get it until it’s in the middle of the play, but it’s something that we had talked about. And so you don’t get it pre-snap, it’s a call and it’s got basically a check on it to what they’re going to do and what they line up in offensively is what happened. So we had half in one call and half in another. So the first thing in my head is, ‘Well, we’ve got a blown coverage and they’re about to score a touchdown, so I do it, which you can’t do and now it’s a penalty. But I know that if he threw it out in a flat it was about to be a touchdown.’ Can’t do it.”
Anzalone, the team-voted captain and middle linebacker, on the double-timeout situation: “We were kind of in cover zero, and they went to max pro. We checked to two high, cover two. And that’s kind of why I was trying to relay the call. After that, I’m not really sure what happened. I think that we called timeout, and I’m not sure if everyone was on the same page. It was still, I think, third down after that. Either way, the 5-yard penalty wasn’t that huge of a deal. Rather than a touchdown, that really put the game out of arm’s reach.”
Lions CB Amani Oruwariye’s take on the miscommunication: “We’ve got to communicate, man. There were a couple substitution errors, couple like I said, miscommunication. We just can’t have it, man. Especially the type of season we’re having, we have to eliminate any errors or any kind of miscommunication. So, we’ll get that cleaned up.”
Oruwariye on what he saw on his interception despite looking out of sorts before the snap: “I just knew when it got to a certain part in the red zone -- they run a lot of in-breaking routes. I know you can’t run past the end zone, so I just kind of cut under it.”
Campbell on his offensive playcalling: “You think I should have thrown more? I saw you. Throw deeper? I guess I -- and I’m not judging what you’re saying -- I get it. I get there can be some frustration. But it’s also I’m mindful of how do you keep yourself in this game, continue to move the football. There were so many things that we did early in this year to where disaster happens. It’s sack fumble, it’s all this because we’re trying to be a little more aggressive. So maybe we could have, but I feel like at the end of the day -- we threw it more than we ran it. You’re trying to do a few things and it’s just once you get in those holding calls and they’re just standing there looking at you, you’re trying to be smart about how you’re going to do it. You want to get yourself at that point in a third-and-manageable -- just let’s find a way to get to third-and-7 and then when you don’t, now you’re sitting there, it’s third-and-a mile and it’s hard. I don’t regret that. I still want to be able to run the football because I think it starts that way. I like that we threw it deep a little bit. We could push the ball down the field. We got a big touchdown. I think there again you just -- take it where it goes. Give yourself a chance. We had a chance at the end. It wasn’t good enough. But I equate that not to throwing it more, I equate that to the penalties.”
Lions LT Taylor Decker on how difficult the frequent holding calls were to overcome: “It’s frustrating, but I mean, that’s a good way to put it, you can’t lose your stinger because football is an aggressive sport. As an o-lineman, you do everything you can to get your hands inside, and try to drive the guy, and have awareness of where the ball carrier is, where the quarterback is, but yeah, you’ve got to keep playing aggressive. You’ve just got to try and play with good technique and good awareness, and if they call it, they call it. But we’re not going to go out there and play tentatively. I think that would be the wrong way to go about it. Obviously, I haven’t seen every single replay of what was called, so we’ll have to check the tape and see how we can improve upon that.”
Lions QB Jared Goff on if this young roster needs to learn how to win: “First you have to learn how not to lose and it’s something that we’ve had a hard time doing obviously, especially in these close games. How do you take care of the football late in the game? How do you make stops on defense? How do you move the ball efficiently later in the game and not hurt yourself? For me, how do I stay in the pocket and not let those guys get moved off my spot and allow a holding call there in some instances? It’s little things like that, that the good teams do and do consistently and something we’re working towards, something we’re on our way to, I believe. But it’s something that we’re working towards.”
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Inside the locker room: Detroit Lions try to explain what went wrong on Chicago’s 18-play game-winning drive - mlive.com
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