Thankfully, Detroit forgot that Megatron is on their team until the end of the game.
I cannot imagine what it must be like to be a Lions fan today. Just brutal. Quick recap: Bears hand the game to the Lions all day but manage to take a 5 point lead with about a minute left. Backup Shaun Hill leads the Lions down the field and throws a jump ball for Calvin Johnson in the end zone that he catches (clearly), while getting both feet down and even lands on his ass with the ball in his hand before putting the ball on the ground to help himself get up. Ref calls it incomplete. Bears win. This is on par with the ridiculous Armando
Gallaraga call last month (although that was pretty awful). God, it must suck to be from Detroit.
Needless to say, we escaped with a lucky victory despite the lopsided statistics (total yards: 463-168). A few thoughts/notes:
Cutler looked OK - lucky 80 yard TD pass on a screen to Forte and an awful decision on his INT. Fumble was normal, not particularly careless. Otherwise, pretty solid - made the throws he needed to make down the stretch including a few big 3rd down conversions and the game winner to Forte. Also moved well in the pocket to avoid pressure. The Lions have an underrated defensive front and secondary, so I thought he played pretty well overall.
Forte looks like he got his 2008 speed back. Big game. He'll mesh well with Chester Taylor, who is still the best 3rd down back in the NFL (great blocker, can catch well and is very
situationally aware).
Bears
WR's were all good but someone needs to step up and be a threat. My guess is that it'll be Knox (speed) over
Aromashodu (size). We'll have to wait and see. Hester looks like a non-factor.
Bears D was awesome. The 14 points came from turnovers (which were brutal) but in all, Peppers looks like a beast and makes everyone else look better too. He forces the QB back to the middle where Harris, Briggs and
Urlacher can destroy him. Also takes some pressure off the secondary (our weakest link) by bringing crazy pressure. He nearly killed Matt Stafford. Dude might be out for 6 weeks with a destroyed shoulder.
The Lions D is very clearly divided into 2 parts: the D-line and secondary (awesome) and the
LB's (awful).
Delmas is a stud,
Suh is a stud and they all hit
really hard. Glad none of our
WR's got injured today.
If I can say one thing to cheer up the Lions fans, it's that Shaun Hill is not a pushover. This is the same guy that won a lot of games for the 49ers and kept getting replaced by younger less proven guys because of management agenda. He reminds me of Jim Miller mixed with Kyle Orton - not pretty but those two guys won a shitload of games in the NFL.
Well, not a sexy start to the season, but 1-0 is all that matters. Next week is at Dallas. I'm watching the Cowboys/Skins game right now... Boys are looking pretty good. However, if I was Tony Romo, I wouldn't be sleeping so well this week.
-KEG
