Instant observations: Lions doomed by second-half struggles against Bears

CHICAGO -- Third downs have been a strange problem for a long time now.

“We have to improve there,” offensive coordinator Ben Johnson said months ago.

Months later, they’re not.

And it’s a big reason the Detroit Lions fell 28-13 on Sunday against the last-place Chicago Bears.

The Lions used back-to-back touchdowns to come back from a double-digit deficit before halftime, but stumbled running out of the tunnel for the third quarter. They opened with three straight three-and-outs, before Jared Goff and Graham Glasgow muffed a snap to begin a fourth drive.

Chicago turned that into a 11-yard touchdown run by Justin Fields, and scored 18 unanswered points the rest of the way overall. And unlike the teams’ meeting just three weeks ago, Chicago didn’t cough this one up, putting away a Lions team that is just three wins away from its first division title in 30 yards.

The Lions (9-4) still have a 2.5-game lead over Minnesota, pending the Vikings’ late afternoon results against the Las Vegas Raiders. But as they head into the final month of the regular season, there continue to be troubling headwinds for one of the league’s hottest teams to open the year.

The good news is the Lions haven’t had a losing streak in 13 months -- their longest such streak in the modern history of the franchise -- and will look to get back on course when they welcome the Denver Broncos to Ford Field on Saturday night.

The bad news is they continue to play troubling football heading into a tough four-game homestretch to conclude the regular season.

They have one of the best offenses in the league, but third quarters have been a blight. They were averaging just 3.8 points in the frame heading into the weekend, which ranked 20th in the league. Eleven of the 12 teams worse than them have losing records.

In Chicago, they never came close to putting something together. They went three-and-out on their first drive after the break, and the Bears came back the other way for a game-tying field goal. Then Penei Sewell jumped early to kick off the next drive, and they went three-and-out again.

Next drive, they lost 1 yard on three plays and punted away again.

Chicago surged ahead at that point, with Moore dusting Lions cornerback Jerry Jacobs on a fourth-and-13 play. And just two plays later, Goff and Glasgow muffed the snap deep in their own territory.

That’s bad. It got much worse once someone blew a containment assignment on the right side of the defense, and Fields -- perhaps you’ve heard of him -- ran nearly unchallenged 11 yards for a touchdown.

It was one of the worst quarters of the season for Detroit, although the fourth wasn’t any friendlier. The Lions turned over the ball on downs twice in a row down the stretch, as Jahmyr Gibbs was stuffed for a loss on fourth-and-1, then Goff was sacked to set up a fourth-and-17 where he turfed a pass to a wide-open Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Goff threw a pick on fourth-and-24 on the subsequent drive, and that was that. The Lions net just 61 yards on seven drives in the second half overall and finished the game by going punt-punt-punt-fumble-downs-downs-pick -- perhaps their worst stretch of offense of the season. And this is a team that scored just six points in Baltimore.

On defense, the struggles are even more profound, and they started early once again. Fields led an eight-play touchdown drive to open the game, threw a 38-yard touchdown pass to D.J. Moore on fourth-and-13 to retake the lead in the third quarter, added the 11-yard score on the ground himself later in the frame, and finished 19 of 33 passing for 223 yards and one touchdown overall.

Fields has given Detroit fits throughout his starting career, as have most mobile quarterbacks, and these days, most quarterbacks in general. Derek Carr didn’t so much as put a football on the ground in the second half last week, and Derek Carr is still Derek Carr.

The week before that, Jordan Love had the best game of his career against Detroit on Thanksgiving. The week before that, the Lions needed 17 points in the final three minutes to pull off an improbable win against Chicago -- again, one of the worst teams in the league.

Detroit still hasn’t played a complete game since taking care of the Raiders before the bye, deepening concerns about why the club’s best football is behind them, and whether it can find its way again before the playoffs.

Let’s get to some more observations:

-- Another bad week for Jerry Jacobs. No, this is not a recording. The third-year cornerback allowed 12 of the 15 passes thrown his way to be completed over the last three weeks, and had another afternoon to forget in Chicago, including getting flat-out beat on a 38-yard touchdown pass to D.J. Moore. What’s worse, it happened on fourth-and-13. Unacceptable stuff. Jacobs was also beaten on third down earlier in the game, then drew a defensive pass interference on the next play, setting up another Chicago score.

Listen. Jacobs is a good guy, and the coaches love his rugged playing style. But he’s not playing like a starting cornerback right now. The Lions did try to replace him with Emmanuel Moseley in free agency, but Moseley played just three snaps before tearing his other ACL and is out for the season. The Lions recently signed another cornerback in Kindle Vildor, and even gave him some snaps against the Bears, so maybe a change is coming there too. It’s certainly deserved, but whether anyone else is an actual improvement is very much to be seen. The cupboard is thin, and cornerback has to be a top priority heading into the offseason. Because the Lions won’t be a legitimate title contender until they can, you know, stop somebody on defense. Right now, it’s not happening.

-- The tackling was really bad all over the field. Alex Anzalone whiffed a couple times early, including on a first-down run by Justin Fields. There were dropped passes too, and so many penalties, including Penei Sewell jumping early on first down when Detroit was really struggling to open the third quarter. Anzalone drew back-to-back penalties in the second quarter, one of them a personal foul that led to a Chicago score. Jerry Jacobs was flagged for defensive pass interference, leading to yet another score. Just a whole comedy of errors that led to Detroit trailing by double digits -- twice -- against one of the worst teams in the league.

-- Eight Lions players caught footballs, but none of them was named Jameson Williams. The second-year wideout has played impactful football in recent weeks, but he still doesn’t have more than two catches in a game in his career. The progress is good to see, but the Lions are still waiting for the speedster to break out in the passing game. He drew only one target in Chicago, and got twisted around on a deep ball. The Bears seemed to creep their defense toward the box throughout the game, due to the lack of downfield passing, and that caused problems for Goff as he looked for intermediate targets like Sam LaPorta and Amon-Ra St. Brown. The double-digit deficits -- two of them -- also took the running game out of the plan, and Chicago feasted on the one-dimensionality, sacking Goff four times and picking him off once.

-- After struggling out of the bye, the Lions have made some serious changes to their starting lineup. In addition to Isaiah Buggs starting for the injured Alim McNeill at defensive tackle, the Lions went with Ifeatu Melifonwu over Tracy Walker at safety, Kayode Awosika over Colby Sorsdal at right guard and went with Jalen Reeves-Maybin over Alex Anzalone for a few plays after Anzalone blew a couple early tackles, then was flagged for defensive holding and unnecessary roughness on consecutive plays, leading to a field goal.

Reeves-Maybin sacked Justin Fields on his second play in the game, then batted down a third-down pass in the third quarter, killing two drives and offering a pleasant reminder that he’s more than a special teams player. It would behoove Detroit to find more ways to get him on the field.

-- The Lions feared Chicago would have a bunch of new looks because that team was coming off the bye. Detroit countered with a deep bag of new tricks itself, perhaps because it was seeing the Bears for the second time in a month. Penei Sewell lined up at left tackle -- including on a 38-yard run by Jahmyr Gibbs -- as well as wide receiver, where he served as a lead blocker for Amon-Ra St. Brown. Tight end Sam LaPorta got a carry at fullback. Jumbo offensive lineman Dan Skipper ran a route at wide receiver.

The wrinkles seemed to help early, but also led to a lot of unforced errors like penalties and drops, including a big one on third down by Jahmyr Gibbs. Goff threw a pick on the following play.

-- Much was made of the Lions’ decision to trade back in the first round of the draft, especially when they used those picks on a running back and tight end. Now as their rookie seasons are heading toward the final month, no one’s complaining anymore about Jahmyr Gibbs and Sam LaPorta. Gibbs ran for 66 yards and one touchdown that kicked off Detroit’s comeback in the second quarter, while LaPorta added 163 receiving yards over the last two weeks. With that, Detroit is the first team ever with a rookie running back and tight end who have each accounted for 700 yards. Yes, Jalen Carter would have been nice, and made a huge difference for a defensive line that continues to struggle. But the guys Detroit got have been really good too, and gives that second-ranked offense a lot of cheap firepower for years to come.

-- Donovan Peoples-Jones finally has his first catch since arriving in a trade from Cleveland at the deadline, and while it took much longer than expected, it was a big grab, moving the chains on fourth-and-4 while Detroit trailed 10-0 in the second quarter. Three plays later, Jahmyr Gibbs was standing in the end zone after a 12-yard touchdown run that drew the Lions within 10-6.

The Lions made some phone calls about adding defensive players at the deadline, and decided -- perhaps to their detriment this season -- to forgo additions on that side of the ball. Instead, they dealt a sixth-round pick to the Browns for the former Michigan star. But DPJ missed his first two games in Detroit because of a rib injury that was flagged during the physical, then didn’t catch either of his targets in his first three games, and dropped one of them.

-- After winning a franchise-record six straight games against the NFC North, the Lions have now dropped back-to-back games against Green Bay and Chicago. They only have two divisional games left, both of which are against the second-place Vikings in the final three weeks of the season. And if they can’t put away the Broncos next week, those games could be played with titanic implications in the division race.