Such a disappointing season this year.

Lions hold off late Bears rally for win


NFL.com wire reports



DETROIT (Dec. 26, 2004) -- The Detroit Lions were fortunate to avoid a second straight heartbreaking loss.

Chad Hutchinson appeared to throw a 43-yard, game-tying touchdown pass to Bernard Berrian with 1:26 left, but an incomplete ruling on the field stood after a review despite replays that appeared to show it should've been overturned, giving Detroit a 19-13 victory over the Chicago Bears on Sunday.

Last week, a botched extra-point kick with 8 seconds left allowed Minnesota to beat Detroit 28-27.

The Lions (6-9) had lost seven of eight and the Bears (5-10) have dropped five of six.

Kevin Jones went over the 1,000-yard mark, something only Barry Sanders and Billy Sims did as Detroit rookies, with a 123 yards rushing.

Jones, who has 1,061 yards, scored on a 1-yard TD and went over the 100-yard mark for the fourth time, getting 25 carries. Sanders ran for 1,470 yards in 1989 and Sims had 1,303 yards rushing in 1980.

Detroit scored on four straight drives in the first half for a 16-0 lead on Jones' TD and Jason Hanson's three field goals.

Linebacker Lance Briggs pulled the Bears to 16-6 late in the third quarter with an interception and 38-yard return. Hanson made his fourth field goal early in the fourth after Jones' fumble was overturned by replay.

Hutchinson capped a 90-yard drive with a 15-yard TD pass to Jason McKie to make it 19-13 with 7:04 to go.

The Bears got the ball back and after converting a fourth-and-3 at midfield, Hutchinson seemed to connect with Berrian for a TD. It appeared that the receiver caught the ball and got both feet in bounds on the side of the end zone, but the officials didn't see it that way and after three more incomplete passes, Detroit escaped with a win.

The Lions beat a team twice in the same season for the first time since 1998 and Chicago missed a chance to win at least one game against every team in the division for the first time since 1991.

Joey Harrington was 15-of-30 for 166 yards with an interception for Detroit.

Hutchinson was 20-of-35 for 114 yards with a TD and Thomas Jones ran for 109 yards.

Kevin Jones' 39-yard run set up the first score, Hanson's 31-yard field goal late in the first quarter.

When Jones surpassed the 1,000-yard mark on Detroit's next drive, he obviously knew it because he threw the football to the sideline before the crowd was told he reached the milestone. Two plays later, Jones dove for a 1-yard TD.

the whole division is so sad. bad, bad teams with no defenses. and the packers are my favorite team.

The Bears have definately had a disappointing year, but I certainly wouldn't say they suck. The defense is looking fierce, for one. They've also had only five players on the ENTIRE team who've played every game. Injuries hit them hard this year.

I wasn't expecting them to do much this year with new coaches and new schemes to learn. I'm expecting play-offs next year.

As for the Lions game, that was the worst call I've ever seen in my life. I've never seen a clearer touchdown call.

Your favorite team sucks.

Hmm. As of last week...

Dec 21, 10:11 AM EST

NFL Team Rankings

LEAGUE Offense Defense
Team Total Rush Pass Total Rush Pass
Arizona Cardinals 25 23 23 15 27 11
Atlanta Falcons 20 1 30 13 10 20
Baltimore Ravens 30 9 31 6 6 9
Buffalo Bills 26 18 26 3 4 3
Carolina Panthers 16T 24 12 17 19 17
Chicago Bears 32 25 32 18 25 13T
Cincinnati Bengals 14 16 18 19T 26 13T
Cleveland Browns 29 27 25 19T 31 7
Dallas Cowboys 18 19 15 22 12 24
Denver Broncos 5 6 8 7 9 10
Detroit Lions 27 21 27 23 18 22
Green Bay Packers 4 10 3 25 17 25
Houston Texans 16T 20 14 27 15 28
Indianapolis Colts 2 12 1 28 21T 29
Jacksonville Jaguars 13 14 17 12 8 19
Kansas City Chiefs 1 4 4 31 14 32
Miami Dolphins 31 31 22 8 30 2
Minnesota Vikings 3 15 2 29 23 27
New England Patriots 10 7 13 9 5 16
New Orleans Saints 21 29 11 32 32 30
New York Jets 11 2 21 5 7 6
New York Giants 23 13 24 14 29 8
Oakland Raiders 15 32 7 30 24 31
Philadelphia Eagles 6 22 5 10 11 12
Pittsburgh Steelers 19 3 28 1 1 4
San Diego Chargers 12 5 20 11 2 26
San Francisco 49ers 24 30 19 16 13 18
Seattle Seahawks 7 8 10 26 21T 23
St. Louis Rams 9 28 6 24 28 15
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 22 26 16 4 20 1
Tennessee Titans 8 11 9 21 16 21
Washington Redskins 28 17 29 2 3 5


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Also...

Dec 21, 5:31 PM EST

NFL Power Index

Index Current Last
Team (W/L/T) Rating Rating
New England Patriots 12-2-0 99 100
Indianapolis Colts 11-3-0 99 99
Philadelphia Eagles 13-1-0 98 100
Pittsburgh Steelers 13-1-0 97 97
San Diego Chargers 11-3-0 95 94
New York Jets 10-4-0 95 94
Buffalo Bills 8-6-0 95 94
Baltimore Ravens 8-6-0 94 94
Minnesota Vikings 8-6-0 93 93
Green Bay Packers 8-6-0 93 94
Denver Broncos 8-6-0 93 93
Carolina Panthers 6-8-0 93 93
Atlanta Falcons 11-3-0 93 93
Washington Redskins 5-9-0 92 89
Kansas City Chiefs 6-8-0 92 91
Jacksonville Jaguars 8-6-0 92 91
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 5-9-0 91 91
Seattle Seahawks 7-7-0 91 92
Cincinnati Bengals 6-8-0 90 92
Dallas Cowboys 5-9-0 89 88
St. Louis Rams 6-8-0 88 89
Oakland Raiders 5-9-0 88 87
New Orleans Saints 6-8-0 88 86
Miami Dolphins 3-11-0 88 86
Houston Texans 6-8-0 88 87
Detroit Lions 5-9-0 88 88
Tennessee Titans 4-10-0 87 87
New York Giants 5-9-0 86 84
Chicago Bears 5-9-0 85 86
Arizona Cardinals 5-9-0 85 84
Cleveland Browns 3-11-0 83 85
San Francisco 49ers 2-12-0 82 83

*The Power Index is a numerical value indicating the relative strength of each team based on this season's performance, changes in personnel, coaching, strength of schedule and current form. The Index is purely a statistical and historical rating and does not take into account emotional factors. Add three points to the home team's rating.


© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.









© 2004 The Washington Post Company

Now this I can sadly agree with.

lovie smith is a good coach. any team would suck if they lost their first string quarterback, especially if your backups are as bad as the bears. just give him some time and he'll do the job.

I can't believe Green Bay is going to finish 10-6 this year. 8)

i watch them every week, give or take a week. they won't. or at least they don't deserve to.

i can't believe some of you are actually still trying to argue that the bears don't suck.

The Bears are so goddamn sad, and definitely do suck. They are a pitiful franchise and have had one decent year in recent memory and that was when Mike Brown was the luckiest man on the face of the earth and had two game winning plays either in OT or at the end of the game. It will take them a long time to be anything near good.

The only hope anyone else in that division has is Favre retiring and the other teams getting hit hard by injuries.

I really think the Lions have potential and will be good in a few years if they can put together a serious defense. If Harrington and those young WRs get some chemistry going, they could really get rocking.

It is really damn funny to me how absolutely shitty the Vikings always manage to finish up things. They are doomed, and they're doomed because they have chosen to build their franchise around a douche bag. When Randy Moss is your franchise player, you will not be a good team because he is not a team player. He is a prima donna who doesn't work hard and is not the kind of guy you want to have as a star.

The Bears D total yards rankings are obviously going to be skewed because they've spent an obscene amount of time on the field due to the offense being ranked last in the league in basically every statistical category since Rex went down.

If you've actually watched the games, you'd see how impressive they really are.

They're FIRST in the league in defensive TDs with 6.

They're SECOND only to the Redskins stopping teams on 3rd down, 30.3% to 29.9%. Third in the league stopping teams on 4th down.

They're tied for 10th in the league with 29 takeaways.

They're tied for 16th in the league in total sacks, with 33. While this may not seem entirely impressive, they had only 18 sacks all of last year.

All of this was missing their #1 CB for 9 games, Charles Tillman. Missing their pro-bowl SS Mike Brown since week 2. Missing their pro-bowl MLB Brian Urlacher for 6 weeks (so far, next week will be 7). And their other starting CB Jerry Azumah for 4 or 5 weeks (can't remember which.)

Not to mention the fact that this is all with brand new coaches and schemes. They'll be good next year, bank on it.

Do not bank on the Bears. They will definitely not be good. They won't make the playoffs even in the perilously shitty NFC. Even if their defense is God and Ditka gets resurrected the Bears will find a way to choke.

The Lions will be good again sooner than the Bears...it's surging offenses that are more quickly rewarded in today's NFL. Yes, defense wins championships, but some quick offensive firepower puts you back on the map.

Let's review, shall we?

Bears = 1 super bowl victory
Lions = 0 super bowl victories
Vikings = 0 super bowl victories

I hope this has been informative.

Okay, so let me get this straight. You'd rather be put back on the map"with a little offensive flash than actually win a championship?

And what do the Lions have exactly? And inconsistant, nearly ready to be proclaimed bust in Joey Harrington. A #1 pick in Charles Rogers, who's been in the league two years and has only managed to not be injured for what? Two games? Then you have Roy Williams who has a lot of promise, but is probably a year or two off from developing fully. What'd he have, 3 dropped passes yesterday? And we're talking about balls that were hitting him in the numbers, not all-pro catches.

Then you have Kevin Jones who looks like he's going to be a pretty good back in this league. So out of your four offensive "stars," looks like only one is going to pan out. It'll take 2 - 4 years to solidify a defense, so I don't know where your high hopes for the Lions is coming from.

As far as the Bears, their offense was ranked 10th in total yards and 11th in first downs before Rex Grossman went down. And their D is already in place, and signed through 2008. The Bears will be play-off bound next year, and I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is.

As has been proven yet again, people outside of this city really don't know shit about the Bears situation.

Once Grossman went down and it was clear Quinn was not a suitable backup (early in week 3's game), everyone including fans thought the Bears would go 1-15. Everyone was prepared for that. It is nothing short of a miracle for that team to win 4 more games without a player playing the quarterback position.

Also, Ditka was never revered as being a great coach in this city by any real Bears fan.

My 45 of the 'SuperBowl Shuffle' will stay in my closet for at least another year....oh well.

I agree.

The season series stands at

Bears 1, Packers 0.

Good luck on sunday. You're going to need it.

Well that's bold talk which I don't think can be right. Let's just agree that they are not going to win that division...no matter how bad it is. Either the Packers or Vikings will win it next year and if any two teams from that division are going to be in the playoffs it will be those two teams. The Bears would have to squeak in as a wild card (which yes, wouldn't be hard in the NFC) but they won't be able to do that. 3 teams from the NFC North will not be in the playoffs next year.

and why again does it matter one bit what happens? if the thing you have to feel good about at the end of the season is the fact that you beat the packers twice, you're sadder than i thought.

The Bears kicked the shit out of the Packers when it did matter in week 2, but for some reason every packer-licking idiot gives the team some sort of free pass for that game.

So far you've offered up exactly no real analysis as to why you don't think a completely healthy Bears team can compete. They have a top two-three defense in the conference when they are completely healthy (which they have not been all season). Even without Brown or Tillman, when Urlacher started, they didn't lose for four straight games, just because of his presence in the middle. And he's not even the best linebacker on that team.

Why would the Packers or Vikings win next year, necessarily? Both return TERRIBLE defenses and both will do little to address them this offseason. The Vikings SUCK on defense. Additionally, they self-destruct year after year because they lack leadership on or off the field and because they lack a winning, team attitude. As long as it's Culpepper to Moss, the Vikings will never even sniff the super bowl. Culpepper is a great player, and so is Moss, but they lack diversity in their playbook and they also lack the ability to play in real weather.

The Packers have Favre and Green and NO DEFENSE WHATSOEVER and they will probably lose early in the playoffs, just like they did last year. The Pack fattened up on bad teams during the middle part of their schedule and they are tremendously overvalued.

Last year Carolina went to the Superbowl with a functional offense and a dominating, ferocious defense. 4 years ago the Ravens set that blueprint. Remember when the Bucs won? It was a dominating DEFENSE that won them the superbowl too. The Patriots DEFENSE has always been their anchor, especially in both of their super bowl wins. Only this year, with the addition of a real back in Dillon can you argue that they actually have acheived balance as far as offense vs. defense goes.

The only team to have a flashy offense and no real defense that won the superbowl recently was the 1999 Rams, and that was a total fluke. Look back every year for the past 20 and I'll bet that 15 or more of the super bowl victors had top 7-8 defenses.

Sorry, but your theory about flashy offenses being a benchmark for contending teams is pretty far off as far as the data goes. Having a suspect defense is exactly why the Kansas City Chiefs will never make the Super Bowl, much less a Conference Championship (much less the playoffs this year for that matter). Lack of defense is what keeps teams like the Colts from ever reaching the promised land. Manning will NEVER EVER WIN A SUPER BOWL with that defensive 11. Defense wins championships. It's not just a cliche.

are the packers even playing for anything in this game? i thought that they'd won their division, and it doesn't seem like anyone can catch them for homefield in that game in the NFC.

Glad you came back to the board to show off your football knowledge, genius.

Guess what? Your team still sucks.

And you're still a crybabby.

Oh, and for those of you keeping score at home, what gives the Packers a free pass in that game is the fact that they were able to get up and win some games. And now they are going to the playoffs.

Which the Bears aren't. Because they suck.

Oh and the first year coach argument doesn't hold water. The Atlanta Falcons (maybe the worst franchise in footaball history) are 11-4 with a rookie coach.