The Lions are holding out hope that safety Brian Branch and left guard Graham Glasgow will be able to play against the Bears on Sunday.
Both players are listed as questionable on the team’s final injury report of the week. Branch was limited in practice the last two days with a calf injury and Glasgow returned to practice on Friday after missing two days with a knee injury.
Defensive back Ifeatu Melifonwu (hand) was designated for return from injured reserve this week and he is listed as questionable to be activated.
Running back David Montgomery (knee) and linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin (neck) are the only members of the active roster who have been ruled out.
It looks like the Bears have a good chance of getting left tackle Braxton Jones back in the lineup this weekend.
Jones did not play in Week’s loss to the Vikings because of a concussion, but he was back to full practice participation on Friday. He’s listed as questionable to face the Lions and the move to a full practice suggests he’s close to clearing the concussion protocol.
Left guard Teven Jenkins (calf), cornerback Jaylon Johnson (illness), and defensive lineman Gervon Dexter (knee) are also listed as questionable.
Running back Travis Homer (hamstring) is listed as doubtful and offensive lineman Ryan Bates (concussion) is the only player who has been ruled out.
After the Bears lost to the Vikings on Monday night in Week 15, their rookie quarterback Caleb Williams said his first year in the NFL has been both “frustrating and encouraging.”
The frustrating part of things was his focus when he spoke to reporters on Wednesday. Williams has already lost as many games as he did during three years in college and he said that he’s learned that “losing is one of those things that really affects me.” Williams added that the “toughest part is fighting yourself” and that he’s worked to keep a positive mindset in place despite the disappointing results.
“This is going to sound crazy, but you talk to yourself, to be honest,” Williams said, via Courtney Cronin of ESPN.com. “You motivate yourself, you encourage yourself. You have positive affirmations, is the word, that you say to yourself. With that, it makes the days better, it makes when you’re going through a tough patch, it makes those days a little bit easier rather than pulling yourself down, telling yourself you’re this and that. Like I said, it sounds kind of crazy, but I tell myself certain things: ‘I am great. I will be great.’ All these different things. So, I think that’s one of the biggest things, is not pulling yourself down and being gracious with yourself.”
In addition to working on his mindset, Williams said that he has also identified “five to eight” things about his game to focus on come the offseason. Passing accuracy is one of the areas he’d like to improve and the hope in Chicago will be that all the self-examination leads to better results than they managed this year.
Most of the Lions players on the active roster who were out of practice on Wednesday were resting, but there are a few players dealing with injuries.
That group includes safety Brian Branch, who is listed with a calf injury. He did not miss a snap in last Sunday’s loss to the Bills, so the best case for the Lions is that Wednesday is a maintenance day.
Left guard Graham Glasgow also went the whole way against Buffalo, but he was out on Wednesday with a knee injury. Running back David Montgomery (knee) was also out as he solicits other opinions about the extent of his injury.
Left tackle Taylor Decker, center Frank Ragnow, defensive tackle DJ Reader, defensive end Za’Darius Smith, wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, and right guard Kevin Zeitler all rested. Defensive back Ifeatu Melifonwu (hand) was a full participant after being designated for return.
The first 12 picks in the 2024 draft included six quarterbacks. With Falcons quarterback Michael Penix, Jr. now promoted to starter in Atlanta, five of the six are playing.
Three earned the Week 1 jobs: Bears quarterback Caleb Williams (first overall), Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels (second overall), and Broncos quarterback Bo Nix (twelfth overall). Patriots quarterback Drake Maye, the third overall pick, made his first start in Week 6.
And now, with Week 16 looming, Penix finally will play. (Only Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy, the tenth overall pick, hasn’t played. And he won’t, due to a knee injury suffered in the preseason.)
Penix has made a couple of garbage-time cameo appearances, during the 34-14 loss to the Seahawks and the 38-6 blowout at the Broncos. He has thrown five passes, completing three. His passer rating is 83.7 — which is significant because Cousins’s rating slipped under 80 in each of his final five starts.
So how good will Penix be? He only has to be a little better than Cousins has been. And the bar has gotten very low in recent weeks.
On Monday night, ESPN offered up one last overlapping doubleheader for the 2024 season. On Tuesday, ESPN disclosed some of the metrics.
The company announced that the three hours of overlapping coverage of Bears-Vikings on ABC and Falcons-Raiders on ESPN averaged 17.8 million viewers.
No specific data was released as to the audience for Bears-Vikings or the audience for Falcons-Raiders.
Many (i.e., me) don’t like the Monday night doubleheaders. Just televise one game, and let us watch that game and only that game.
The good news is that ESPN and ABC apparently have ditched the live look-ins. There’s no reason to do it, since most people can use a split-screen function or have multiple screens.
There’s also no reason to have overlapping prime-time games. Why not just put one of the games on Tuesday night?
We all know it’s just a matter of time before that happens. Just go on and do it.
There’s another Detroit resident who might soon have the FCC up his ass.
Appearing on 97.1 The Ticket in Detroit on Tuesday, Lions coach Dan Campbell dropped a pair of “F” bombs while addressing the current state of the team, after a critical mass of injuries.
“What happens is, you get used to eating filet — and I’m talking all of us — and everything’s good,” Campbell said of the 48-42 loss to the Bills. “Life’s good, you know? And but you forgot what it was like when you had nothing and you ate your fuckin’ molded bread. And it was just fine. And it gave you everything you needed. And sometimes you gotta get punched in the mouth and remember what it used to be like to really appreciate where you are. And we’ll do that.
“And so, we got bad tastes in our mouth, we got kicked around the other day. We lost a few guys. And you know what? It’s exactly what we needed. This is exactly what we needed. So we’re gonna bounce back. We’re gonna respond. We got guys who are about to have an unbelievable opportunity here. And we will play the game any way needed to win. We still got a good offense. We got plenty of defensive players. I can go rattle them off right now. We’re gonna put the best eleven on the field, we’re gonna freakin’ cut it loose, we’re gonna play with our special teams.
“And I don’t give a crap if we gotta win by one point for the rest of the year, that’s what we’re gonna do. And I’m gonna be happy about it. We come out of the game with 50 yards of total offense and we win by one, you’re gonna see smiles on my face, I promise you. If it’s the other way defensively, we give up 700 yards and we win by one point, you’re gonna see a fuckin’ smile from my ear to ear. I promise you.
“So we’re gonna find a way, and we’re gonna get it done.”
It’s the right mindset because it’s the only option. Campbell has to play the hand he’s been dealt. Currently, it’s a bad hand. He has to try to make it into a good one.
Monday night’s 30-12 loss to the Vikings was the eighth in a row for the Bears and there’s only so much of a positive spin that one can put on going through that kind of stretch.
Quarterback Caleb Williams gave it his best try. The first overall pick of this year’s draft was 18-of-31 for 191 yards and a touchdown while being sacked twice in the loss and said “it’s been frustrating and encouraging” when asked to reflect on his rookie season after the loss.
The frustrating part of being on a 4-10 team needs little explanation, but Williams said the encouraging part is “how much we fight as a team.”
“Being able to go through all of what’s happened this year,” Williams said, via Courtney Cronin of ESPN.com. “Me not playing well at the beginning of the season and feeling like I was seeing it well and then being able to find ways to keep growing, keep progressing through those times that I was frustrated. Coaches getting fired and all of this stuff going on, 4-10 right now. Being able to wake up, be consistent, do that every day with how it’s been going is encouraging for me. It’s encouraging for this team and we’ve got to keep going. It’s been encouraging but also frustrating for myself.”
More changes will come for the Bears once the season comes to an end and the choices they make in that process will go a long way to determining if Williams will have to continue working so hard to find bright sides.
Mental errors have had a big hand in the Bears’ current eight-game losing streak and they added another entry to the list in Minnesota on Monday night.
Offensive lineman Doug Kramer failed to report as eligible when he came into the game as a fullback and a D’Andre Swift touchdown run that would have made the score 13-7 in the third quarter was taken off the board as a result. The Bears settled for a field goal and the Vikings continued on their way to a 30-12 win.
After the loss, Kramer said that the blunder was “100 percent on me.”
“Forgot to report,” Kramer said, via Kevin Fishbain of TheAthletic.com. “Ran on the field, clock was running down, got in the huddle and ran the play. It’s an unacceptable mistake. Obviously I apologized to all my teammates, everyone on the offense. Things like that can’t happen.”
The 2024 Bears have allowed Hail Marys and blocked field goals on the final plays of losses and they saw former head coach Matt Eberflus melt down in the final moments of a Thanksgiving loss to the Lions. They have not been good enough on the field to overcome those kinds of mistakes and the next Bears head coach is going to have to clean up that part of the game for the future to be brighter in Chicago.
Two weeks ago, Devin McCourty and I did a PFT Live draft of the best candidates to coach the Bears. In the midst of doing (limited) prep, it occurred to me to suggest that the Bears target a coach currently serving as the head coach of another team.
And it went from there.
I mentioned both 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan and Ravens coach John Harbaugh. That same day, I spouted off my “trade for a coach” idea on The Score in Chicago, and on Rich Eisen’s show. I wrote something about it. It came up again the next day on The Score.
It was sort of like the instructions on fireworks: Light fuse and run.
After the burning of the wick hit the explosive, 49ers G.M. John Lynch called the idea of Shanahan being traded to the Bears “rather comical.” (It’s not, as we noted, Lynch’s call.) After the 49ers thumped said Bears nine days ago, Shanahan reaffirmed his commitment to his current employer.
It all died down after that. Until the Bears were on Monday Night Football and the fourth quarter required a little garbage-time fill from Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.
The topic of the looming coach search came up. And Troy went there.
“In my opinion, I hate to say this because at the end of the day you want a head coach, but I think it’s gotta be an offensive guy that’s going to be able to develop Caleb Williams,” Aikman said. “And those guys are hard to find. And you’re betting on someone, you’re not certain whether or not they can be a head coach.
“There has been discussion about, ‘Do you give up some picks and see if you can maybe make a deal for a guy like Kyle Shanahan?’ I would be all in on that. Because he would develop a quarterback, and he’s a hell of a head coach. But can you pull that off? That’s a better question. And who might you hire that has no head-coaching experience as an offensive guy? You never know the answer to that, as to how good they’re gonna be.”
It’s one thing for a moron like me to say it. It’s another thing for a three-time Super Bowl winning Hall of Fame quarterback who has been a No. 1 analyst for over two decades to say it.
The broader point, when it all came up two weeks ago, was that teams shouldn’t limit themselves to unproven coordinators, fired former NFL head coaches, and college coaches. Why not call other NFL teams to see if maybe, just maybe, a deal can be made?
I specified Shanahan because: (1) the 49ers nearly traded Jim Harbaugh to the Browns in 2014, after he took them to a Super Bowl and two other conference championships in three seasons; and (2) it just feels like the 49ers and Shanahan could mutually benefit from a fresh start after six seasons of failed efforts to sixth Super Bowl title.
Maybe 49ers owner Jed York would laugh at Bears chairman George McCaskey and hang up the phone. Either way, the call is free.
More importantly, the idea has now gone mainstream, thanks to Monday Night Football.
