The Honolulu Blueprint: 10 keys to a Lions victory over the Bears

10 keys to a Detroit Lions victory over the Chicago Bears on Thanksgiving Day. It’s the Honolulu Blueprint!

The Detroit Lions (10-1) are back home inside the comfy confines of Ford Field in Week 13, hosting division rival the Chicago Bears (4-7) for their annual Thanksgiving Day game. If the Lions want to continue their hot streak, they’ll need to follow the keys to victory laid out in this week’s Honolulu Blueprint.

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Bears offensive and defensive schemes

For a detailed look at the opposing scheme, make sure you check out our complementary breakdown piece: Lions Week 13 Preview: Breaking down Bears’ offensive and defensive schemes .

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Key 1: Jump on them early

The Bears made a change at offensive coordinator two weeks ago and it’s re-energized the offense. Quarterback Caleb Williams is improving, points are showing up in areas where they hadn’t previously, and they’ve taken the Packers and Vikings down to the wire each of the last two weeks. They’re building confidence in each loss and are searching for ways to get over the hump and find a way to win.

The Lions will want to make sure they assert themselves early in this game and show Chicago why Detroit is considered the best team in the NFL.

While the Lions have allowed opening drive scores (and recovered from them) the Bears have struggled early in games. In their 11 games this season, they have only scored twice on their opening two possessions—and both were field goals. For the Lions, they’ve scored on their opening two possessions 12 times, with nine touchdowns and three field goals.

Grabbing an early lead over the first two possessions will stress the Bears’ offense because, by the time the second quarter arrives, the Lions are typically up to speed and rolling. This season, the Lions have outscored their opponents 161 to 46 in the second quarter, a difference of 10.5 points per game.

Key 2: Run “right” into the Wide-9

While the Bears’ offense is improving and finding its groove, their defense is headed in the opposite direction. It starts up front on the defensive line and its alignment and ends with their lack of depth.

The Bears have a talented defensive line and like to attack with just four linemen (their blitz rate is 23.9%, 23rd in the NFL), but as we have seen with this approach in recent games (Colts, Jaguars, Texans , Packers, and Titans) this opens up an opportunity for the Lions to establish the run. In these last five games, the Lions have been able to play bully ball up front and have run for an average of 145.2 yards per game on the ground.

The weak spot for the Bears just so happens to align with the strength of the Lions. Chicago typically deploys their best pass rusher Montez Sweat at left defense end across from right tackle Penei Sewell, with the next interior player playing in the gap between the right guard Kevin Zeitler, and center Frank Ragnow. This can give the Lions a 3 vs. 2 personnel advantage, as well as a size advantage on the strongest run side of their offensive line.

Obviously, this alignment isn’t always going to be there, but when the Lions see it pre-snap, it’d be advantageous for Jared Goff to have an audible ready to take advantage.

Key 3: Be physical at the LOS

Physicality in the trenches will be incredibly important for the Lions because the Bears lack the depth to compete in a trench warfare battle for four quarters.

Over their five-game losing streak, the Bears have allowed an average of 151 yards to opposing rushing attacks, and it’s led to their DVOA run defense score plummeting to 30th in the NFL. Meanwhile, the Lions are averaging 150.8 yards rushing per game, fourth most in the NFL, giving them the No. 2 rushing DVOA in the NFL right now.

You can see the results of the Lions’ physicality when looking at Next Gen Stats’ advanced statistics.

This season, Detroit’s backs are averaging 1.79 rushing yards before contact (fifth most in the NFL) because of the push from their offensive line. Conversely, the Bears’ run defense is allowing teams to run for 1.84 yards before contact, the seventh-worst output in the NFL.

This is also reflected in “stuffed rate” (runs stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage) where the Lions are only stuffed on 13.8% of their runs (fourth-best), while the Bears are only stuffing the run 15.1% of the time (eighth-worst).

Additionally, this also shows up in runs of 10+ yards, where Detroit has produced 44 rushes of this nature this season (sixth most), while the Bears have allowed 40 (10th worst).

Key 4: Take what’s available

As I outlined in the Bears’ schematic breakdown , Chicago plays a bend-don’t-break style of defense, deploying zone coverage around 72% of the time (ninth-most), typically in a Cover-3 shell. The overall game plan is to keep the play in front of them, they make their tackles, and wait for the offense to make a mistake that they can capitalize upon.

In recent weeks, opposing offenses have taken what the Bears have given them, dinked and dunked their way down the field, and when the linebackers pinch up, the gap behind them and in front of the safeties have been open for the taking.

The Lions have so many ways to beat teams on offense, they can play this game with the best of defenses, and should feel very comfortable taking what is there, methodically moving the ball down the field. Jared Goff has the Mr. Perfect moniker attached to his profile page at Pro Football Reference because he doesn’t make a ton of mistakes and puts his skill players in positions that best suit their skills.

So when quick slants to Amon-Ra St. Brown or dump-offs to Jahmyr Gibbs in the flat present themselves, the Lions should take what’s there and keep moving forward down the field .

Key 5: Attack single-high coverage with deep shots

Similarly to running the ball to their right side, the Lions should have an audible play in their pockets for when they get Jameson Williams isolated with preferred coverage.

Bears corner Jaylon Johnson is one of the best in the NFL, and Chicago prefers to put him on the “field” side of the formations. This sets up their best coverage player covering the most ground, and in theory, should make the remaining portions of the field tougher to work within.

The biggest issue with this strategy is that it’s predictable, and the corner spot opposite Johnson has been a problem. Tyrique Stevenson has been a disaster ever since he gave up the Hail Mary touchdown to Washington, and the Bears have started to supplement his starting snaps with reserve Terell Smith.

Additionally, if the Lions’ success on the ground or in the short passing game forces a safety into the box, the Bears appear comfortable leaving one safety in centerfield. Their preferred option is Elijah Hicks, but he did not play last week and has not practiced this week, which puts him in jeopardy of missing this game. That could force them to turn to backup safety Jonathan Owens to cover a lot of ground.

Therefore, if the Lions can get the right look—specifically ball on the right hash, which would put Johnson on the left side of the field—they can get Williams squared up with Stevenson or Smith, along with a replacement safety in single-high safety with a lot of ground to cover. In these scenarios, I’d like to see the Lions have the ability to check into a 9-route (vertical straight down the field) and test the Bears secondary deep.

Key 6: Ball security

Over the last two games, the Bears defense has benefitted from offenses’ mistakes in the red zone, specifically inside the 5-yard line. The Packers were guilty of throwing an interception and turning the ball over on downs, thus twice taking points off the board. Last week, the Vikings fumbled the ball inside the 5-yard line, killing a drive that could have opened up the game.

The Bears force 1.6 turnovers a game (seventh-best in the NFL) and the Lions will need to make sure they don’t fall victim to a back-breaking play at a critical spot on the field.

Key 7: QB Contain

The Lions have faced a few mobile quarterbacks this season and have done well to corral them with their contain-and-squeeze approach on the defensive line. Last week, Anthony Richardson ran for 35 yards during the Colts’ scripted plays, but only managed 26 yards rushing the remainder of the game. Prior to that, Jaguars’ Mac Jones ran for 7 yards, Texans’ C.J. Stroud just 5 yards, while Packers’ Jordan Love ran three times for 0 yards.

Since the change at offensive coordinator, the Bears have been using more RPO and zone reads with Caleb Williams, as well as asking him to pull the ball down and run if his quick reads aren’t available. As a result, he ran nine times for 70 yards against the Packers and six times for 33 yards against the Vikings.

The Lions won’t need to do anything drastic to their defensive front, but they will need to stay aware of Williams’ rushing abilities and have a plan in place.

Key 8: Know the RB on the field

The Bears tend to deploy two running backs on game day, starter D’Andre Swift and reserve Roschon Johnson. Under their previous offensive coordinator (Shane Waldron), the Bears leaned on Swift on over 75% of offensive plays, but with a new play-caller at the helm (Thomas Brown), they’ve scaled Swift down to around 55% of offensive snaps, while increasing Johnson’s snaps from 25% to 45%.

Unlike the Lions’ running back duo, the Bears’ running backs have clear differences in strengths and where on the field they succeed. As we have seen for years in Detroit, Swift instinctively wants to bounce the ball to the outside, even when he doesn’t need to. Johnson is the opposite and wants to force things between the tackles, following the play design, even if it’s not properly blocked.

For the Lions’ defensive front-seven, they’ll need to identify which back is on the field and recognize their tendencies. With Swift, they’ll need to use the same concepts they’ll be using to contain Williams, setting firm edges and bringing supplemental support to fill gaps. When Johnson is on the field, the linebackers need to be gap-sound in between the tackles and their safeties will need to adjust their eyes as backup.

Key 9: Prep for D.J. Moore’s short game YAC

Another very unique change since the offense switched over to Brown as a play-caller has been their usage of D.J. Moore. After averaging 9.8 air yards to target (AY/Tgt) under Waldron, Moore’s AY/Tgt has dropped significantly to 1.9 yards over the last two games.

The theory behind this move is to get the ball into Moore’s hand quicker and allow him to use his ability to create yards after the catch (YAC). They’re accomplishing this via wide receiver screens, crossers behind the line of scrimmage, crossers just beyond the line of scrimmage, and even as a pitch outlet in RPOs. So far, this strategy is working very well.

Over the last two games, Moore has made 14 receptions for 142 yards, but seven of those catches have come at or behind the line of scrimmage and they’ve produced 96 of his total yards. What’s fascinating about this approach is that Moore has 120 YAC yards for those seven catches, meaning, on average, the Bears are willing to sacrifice three and a half yards per play so they can get Moore the ball.

In order for the Lions to slow this down, they’ll need to be conscious of the Bears’ new tendency to distribute the ball quicker and attack these situations.

Key 10: Prep for “quick throws”

In an effort to slow things down for Williams during his rookie season, Brown has called more “quick throws” to help build confidence in his young quarterback. Often these throws involve no reads and ask Williams to simply snap and throw without assessing the situation. Other times, he may have one read, but he’s rarely asked too much beyond that right now.

Here’s a statistical example of how this change helps Williams’ success rate, taken from my breakdown of the Bears’ scheme :

Under Waldron, Williams took, on average, 2.9 seconds to throw his passes. But under Brown, the rookie has cut that number to 2.42 seconds. On the season, when Williams takes longer than 2.5 seconds to throw, his completion percentage is 51.7%, throwing for 1,419 yards, six touchdowns, and five interceptions. On plays where he gets rid of the ball in under 2.5 seconds, Williams averages a 77% completion percentage and has thrown for 937 yards, four touchdowns, and zero interceptions.

So far, this strategy has been successful, and as a result, they’re back to producing offensive touchdowns (after three straight games where they did not).

The unfortunate news for the Bears this week is that the Lions’ press-man coverage strategy is very well-suited for this style of offense. Against “quick throws” (under 2.5 seconds), the Lions’ defense is only allowing 66.7% of passes to be completed (best in the NFL) and their defensive success rate on such plays is 55.3% (fourth best in the NFL)—meaning, they win these situations more than they lose.

The Lions will be keenly aware that the Bears could pull a double move and try and catch the defensive being too aggressive, but the Lions have the safeties to prevent this from being successful.