Sunday Funday - Not for Bears/Lions fans

The way the season has been going, it’s easy to rail on the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions. Not a whole lot has gone right this year for either team. 

For one of them, the fix is pretty simple. The other one is the Chicago Bears, a franchise in need of an identity. 

Let’s start with the easier-to-identify problem that is the Bears. Spoiler alert, their biggest problem isn’t everyone’s favorite scape goat, Jay Cutler. Yes, Cutler did look pretty average this year before getting hurt, but putting that blame on him is too simplified. 

The blame really belongs on the front office. 

Consider the following: In back-to-back years, Cutler has had to readjust to losing three of his best playmakers. Before last year, wide receiver Brandon Marshall was sent off to the Jets for a fifth-round pick (which turned out to be Adrian Amos; at least the pick was used wisely). This past offseason, Cutler saw running back Matt Forte and tight end Martellus Bennett leave Chicago. 

Who has replaced those key pieces? Rookie Jordan Howard has looked good at running back recently, but his emergence has come since Cutler has missed time. Top receiver Alshon Jeffery has been banged up again, and when he is on the field, defenses can key in on him. 
It would be one thing if the Bears front office had viable young alternates before jettisoning those veterans. But its inability to get in good replacements, plus persistent holes on defense, places the blame directly on the front office. 

A look at the Lions, on the other hand, shows a team on the brink of taking that next step into contender status. Each of their first five games have been decided by one score or less, although only two have resulted in victories. 

How do they fix that? The answer is patience. 

Patience can be a hard thing to have in a 16-game football season. But there’s reason to believe that things will get better in Detroit. 

Just take a look at the Lions defense, the one area that has been holding them back. They’ve only forced three turnovers so far — a number that has to improve — but they’ve also forced three more fumbles that they didn’t recover. Getting Ziggy Ansah back from injury would help their already-strong pass rush, and maybe force teams into more bad decisions.  

Getting some more turnovers would obviously help out the offense, which has been hit with the injury bug. It looks like it will be the 20th consecutive season without a Lions running back in the Pro Bowl following the potentially season-ending injury to Ameer Abdullah, and his backup, Theo Riddick (who’s also injured now) is more of a pass-catching option. It remains to be seen if Justin Forsett can be the answer, but if the Lions have a chance to bring in an improvement, they have to pounce on it. 

Sure, the Lions have some work to do if they want to make the playoffs for only the third time this millennium, but it could be worse. They could be the Bears.