A tepid performance in a Week 1 loss to the Green Bay Packers raised alarms around the Detroit Lions.
It was nothing that a visit from the Chicago Bears couldn’t fix.
The Lions steamrolled the Bears in a 52-21 home win Sunday with a performance that should quell concerns that Detroit’s offense isn’t the same without former offensive coordinator Ben Johnson. The Lions did so with Johnson in the building in his first game back in Detroit as Chicago’s head coach.
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Lions set tone early, then feast
Detroit marched 60 yards on the first drive of the game that ended with a touchdown run by Jahmyr Gibbs. A David Montgomery touchdown accounted for Detroit’s second score as the Lions retook the lead at 14-7.
Amon-Ra St. Brown, meanwhile, accounted for 115 receiving yards and three touchdowns on the day, all of them on passes from Jared Goff. Home-run hitter Jameson Williams did his job with 108 yards and a touchdown on just two catches.
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And Goff himself had one of the best games of his career while completing 23 of 28 passes for 334 yards with five touchdowns and no turnovers. At one point, he completed 17 straight passes, one short of his career-best streak.
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In total, it was a precision effort from a potent offense that spread the ball around to its featured players. The Lions racked up 511 yards of offense on 8.8 yards per play against 339 from the Bears. They didn’t turn the ball over. They put up at least 10 points in each quarter of the game.
It was the kind of game Johnson would have been proud to have called. Instead, the credit goes to John Morton, who took over as offensive coordinator after Johnson left to take Chicago’s head-coaching job.
Jahmyr Gibbs (0), David Montgomery (5) and Amon-Ra St. Brown had Detroit’s offense humming against Chicago.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Bears deflate after late Lions TD to end first half
The Bears, meanwhile, kept things close early and thought they were going into halftime facing a 21-14 deficit. Officials mistakenly allowed the second-quarter game clock to run to zero after a deep pass from Goff to rookie receiver Isaac TeSlaa inside the Chicago 5-yard line, and Bears players started to leave for the locker room.
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But officials conferred and determined that six seconds remained on the game clock after the pass, enough time for Goff to find St. Brown in the end zone for a 28-14 halftime lead.
From there, the Bears were toast.
Chicago’s offense sputtered out of the halftime gates with a three-and-out punt on its first drive. The Bears trailed 31-17 to start their second drive of the half and rolled the dice on fourth-and-5 from their own 46. Williams’ pass fell incomplete and the Lions took over on downs.
Three plays later, Goff hit Williams with a 44-yard touchdown strike, and the rout was on.
Detroit reeled off 24 straight points before Chicago scored an ancillary touchdown to cut its deficit to 45-21 early in the fourth quarter. But this Bears offense is not the type to mount the kind of fourth-quarter deficit it faced.
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There was no miracle Bears rally, and Chicago has dropped to a disappointing 0-2 record to start the Johnson era following last week’s Monday night collapse against the Vikings. Williams finished the game completing 19 of 30 passes for 207 yards with two touchdowns and one interception.
The Lions, meanwhile, improve to 1-1 with an emphatic win to signal to the 2-0 Packers that there will be a challenge in the race for the NFC North.