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Good morning. The Bears are riding a one-game winning streak.
Of course, it came against one of the few teams in the NFL that just might be worse than they are, but for a game, in terrible conditions, the Bears looked like an actual football team as opposed to the masqueraders in football uniforms they were for a long stretch. And now, at 3-9, they head into their first divisional rematch of the season as they head to Detroit to play the leading Lions.
The 8-4 Lions have had an interesting season. After falling to the Bears to start the season 1-3, they’ve since won 7 of their last 8, including a sweep of the Vikings and their first two wins of more than one score. But they head into today’s matchup starting a fairly vulnerable interior of their line, as Laken Tomlinson has to step in at guard as Graham Glasgow moves to center with the loss of Travis Swanson to a concussion. Matthew Stafford has had a tremendous year, and with 27 sacks taken, it can’t be said he’s done it with clean pass protection either.
But for the Navy and Orange, there’s a few bright sides - namely, a front seven that’s rounded into form fairly decently. Leonard Floyd roared back into action with two sacks and a safety against the 49ers last week, and Akiem Hicks has been a force all season as he’s put together a six-sack campaign thus far. Offensively, Matt Barkley has put together a pair of outings exceeding the expectations of a fourth choice quarterback, but gets another test against a pretty good defensive back set in the Lions.
Do the Bears have enough to put together their fourth win? Let’s find out.
Jumping into some Bears/Lions linkage from around WCG:
Bears/Lions Previewing: Game Preview (Sam) | Five Questions (Jeff) | Injury Report (Les) | Essential Game Info (Dane)
Lester on TV: Lester was on with Jarrett Payton on CLTV’s Sports Feed this week. Enjoy!
Bears Winning Awards: Acho: Man of the Year Nomination | Hicks: NFC Defensive Player of the Week | Floyd: Defensive Rookie of the Year Favorite? (Zerg)
Bears Fangio Silliness: Fangio Leaving? | Fangio isn’t going anywhere (Les) | Why the hell would the Bears dump Fangio? (Les)
Bears Quarterback Silliness: (PFF) Is Barkley the Future? (Les’ Podcast) | When should the Bears draft a QB? (Les)
Sad Former Bear News: Rashaan Salaam dead at 42 (Jack) | A Sad Farewell (Jack)
Around the NFL: Ten Thoughts (Les) | WCG Day After, We Watch The Games Power Rankings (Ken)
Draft and the Art of Acquisition: Grading Pace’s Picks, 3rd Quarter (Ken) | Finding Blue Chip Players, Part 2 (Josh)
Your reminders that, as is typically the case with a noon game, the first quarter thread comes up at noon central time. We’ll have quarterly threads popping as the game goes on. At the game’s conclusion, we’ll have a quick recap along with the thread for the late slates of games, and in the morning we’ll follow with Notes and the morning Den.
With all the propers out of the way, Bear Down.
This week’s WCG Sunday Livestream is a solo edition as Sam has a family birthday party to attend to, so I’ll be here for about two hours bringing you to the game. I almost feel like we have some things to talk about.
If you want to get a hold of me during the stream, well, of course there are ways, Dude.
- Here in the comment thread. Like, here. As in, look down. See the comments? Join in!
- Over on the Twitch page at /sjs_illini.
- And over at the Twitter. I’m at @SJS_illini. If Sam were here, he’d be at @SamHouseholder.
We kick off at 9:30 AM CT. Join us, won’t you?