Bears 48, Lions 24
Can the Chicago Bears lock up special teams coordinator Dave Toub to a lifetime contract right now?
Toub always has the Bears among the best in the NFL in special teams. On Sunday, they played as well in that phase as I've ever seen a team play. They made one mistake, when Al Afalava jumping offsides during a first-half Lions field goal attempt and giving Detroit a first down it later cashed in for a touchdown. Otherwise special teams was the primary reason the Bears won on a day when neither their offense nor their defense was noticabely better than the Lions' unit it went up against.
Johnny Knox's 102-yard kickoff return for a touchdown grabbed the headlines, but I was just as impressed with Earl Bennett, who had four nice punt returns after Devin Hester went down with an injury. Brad Maynard had a vintage Brad Maynard day, placing all four of his punts inside the 20 yard line. Robbie Gould got a monkey off his back, making a 50-yard field goal for the first time in his otherwise brillant career. And the Bears' kick coverage teams, which had uncharacteristically struggled early in the season, suffocated the Lions and allowed the Bears to dominate the battle for field positon.
Elsewhere, there were some things to like about the win ... and some things that weren't so likeable. Jay Cutler was decent, with a QB rating over 100 for the third straight game, but I thought his effort was a notch below what it was against Pittsburgh and Seattle. Matt Forte finally had the breakout game we'd been waiting for, but most of his production was concentrated in a couple of long runs. I'm still waiting for Forte and the running game to show that grinding, chains-moving consistency that could compliment Cutler's passing and really make the Bears offense an elite unit.
As for the defense, I thought it looked terrible in the first half ... and outstanding in the second, particularly in the third quarter. All in all, it was a C performance against a Lions team that does have playmakers (Calvin Johnson and Kevin Smith, to name two) but is quarterbacked by a rooie, Matthew Stafford. The defensive line showed some spunk late, but Nick Roach and Zackary Bowman, to name two players, need to play better.
