Head Coach Jim Schwartz was noticeably upset following the team’s 48-24 loss at Soldier Field.
“One of the worst second halves of football I’ve ever been associated with,” he said.
“We were poor on special teams, we were poor on offense, we were poor on defense, we were out-coached, we were out-played; their trainers were probably even better than ours in the second half.”
It was a tough pill to swallow. After earning a victory last week against Washington, the Lions came out in the first half against Chicago and looked sharp offensively.
Rookie quarterback 
“That’s definitely what we can do,” said Johnson of the offense after the game. “We’ve just got to be able to adjust when those guys (the defense) make their adjustments and we’ll be alright.”
Detroit had a tough time on special teams, which hurt the team on both sides of the ball as it pertained to field position. The Lions’ average start offensively was their own 18 while the Bears’ average start was the Detroit 46.
Though the Lions got out of the first half tied with the Bears at 21, losing the field position battle came back to bite them in the second half.
“That’s obviously no way to be able to play,” said Schwartz. “Like I said, we got outplayed on offense, defense and special teams.”
ADJUSTMENTS
Offensively, the Lions struggled in the second half after Chicago made adjustments to take away what Detroit was doing best in the first half.
After the Bears returned the opening kickoff of the second half for a touchdown to take a 28-21 lead, Chicago played a lot of Cover 2 to take away Stafford’s deep ball and apply significant pressure.
“That’s what they want to do,” said Stafford, “They want to pin their ears back, rush the passer, drop seven guys, cut the sidelines off and make it tough on me and they were able to do it.”
What didn’t help was the fact that Detroit struggled to run the ball. After strong showings on the ground against both Minnesota and Washington – two solid defensive fronts – the Lions couldn’t get anything going against the Bears.
“That was very disappointing,” said Schwartz. “Not being able to run the ball against Cover 2 … it’s one thing when they’re loading nine guys in the box or eight guys in the box and you can’t get the run game started, but (that wasn’t the case).”
THE DEFENSE
The first half was a shootout; Detroit and Chicago went touchdown-for-touchdown to finish tied at 21. In the second half, the defense settled down a bit in the third quarter, but the offense’s struggles kept the Lions from gaining any ground.
The defense didn’t make any splash plays aside from defensive end
“I don’t know what happened,” said Avril. “All around we weren’t doing what we needed to do to get a win or get some points on the board.”
Things weren’t easy for the defense the entire game, however, considering the Bears started in Detroit territory in all but one drive.
“We’ve changed a lot of different things,” said Schwartz of special teams.
“We’re still searching for a formula there. Since the opener, we haven’t got a consistent return game. We did a nice job of returning in the opener, but we haven’t been consistent since then. Our kicking hasn’t been good, our coverage hasn’t been good.”
NO SILVER LINING
Schwartz found no silver lining after the game.
“We lost the football game,” he said. “You can’t come up here and point to positives in the second half; you can’t say, ‘Well, I was trending up,’ or any of that other happy stuff. We got outplayed in the second half. We played poorly. There’s a lot to be ticked off about for that second half of football.”
On top of that, the Lions came out of this game with a few injuries.
Players who left the game included
One thing Schwartz wanted to make clear, though, was that players came out due to injury. He wasn’t conceding the game because of score.
“I’m not going to take players out when we’re behind, I’m never going to concede a game,” he said. “We went for it on fourth down late in the game because I’m not going to punt late in that game. We weren’t protecting anybody, we were trying to win the football game.”
