CHICAGO – It might officially be time to panic after the Detroit Lions suffered an ugly loss to the Chicago Bears.
A few weeks ago, Detroit’s coronation as the NFC North champion seemed a mere formality. The Lions were 8-2, they had already beaten the Packers and Bears head-to-head, and nobody in the division was even within three games.
But a lot has changed in the three weeks since that first Bears game. The Lions got pushed around by the Packers at home on Thanksgiving Day. They barely held on after building an early 21-0 lead against the Saints last week. And then this week was their most discouraging performance to date.
RELATED: Detroit Lions fans seeing ghosts as team shows some signs of collapse
It was frustrating to see the Lions lose at home to the Seahawks, and embarrassing to lose by 32 points in Baltimore, but neither of those games felt as damning as Sunday’s performance in Chicago.
The Lions went into halftime with a hard-fought 13-10 lead. They dominated the second quarter after falling behind 10-0, and all signs pointed toward them seizing control of the game and reaching 10 wins for the first time in nearly a decade.
That’s when it all went south. The second half was an abomination.
Detroit didn’t move the chains in the second half until 8:17 remained in the fourth quarter. While the Bears scored on four of their first five drives after the break, the Lions went 3-and-out, 3-and-out, 3-and-out, fumbled, and turned the ball over on downs.
Those were five critical drives, all while the game was still well within reach. Detroit gained a total of 21 yards on 15 plays. Gross.
In the meantime, the Lions were busy making a series of crippling errors.
The most egregious was Aidan Hutchinson jumping offsides on a 4th and 13 when the Bears were about to punt. Justin Fields was just trying to see if he could get someone to jump, and Hutchinson obliged. Fields took the snap and tossed a 38-yard touchdown on the free play.
Instead of getting the ball back in a 13-13 game, the Lions fell behind by six points and never recovered.
They could have bounced back, though, if not for Jared Goff dropping a perfectly good snap on the ensuing drive. His turnover gave Chicago the ball inside Detroit’s 30, and five plays later, the deficit grew to an insurmountable 12 points.
There was a 15-yard late hit penalty on Alex Anzalone. A botched extra point. Dropped passes by Jahmyr Gibbs and Amon-Ra St. Brown. A terrible, slow-developing play call on 4th and 1 when the Lions were deep in their own territory.
Detroit failed to notice that there was one more second on the game clock than the play clock at the end of the first quarter, costing them five yards to start the second. The team looked unprepared in all phases.
These are the types of mistakes Lions fans have grown used to over the past five decades -- and the ones this team had not been making the first half of the season.
The defense can’t get pressure. The secondary can’t guard. Goff has been a turnover machine (nine in the past four games).
Suddenly, the Lions only lead the Vikings by two games. And guess who’s on the schedule two times before the end of the season? That’s right: Minnesota controls its own destiny in the NFC North.
In between those head-to-head matchups with the Vikings, the Lions have to go on the road and face the Cowboys, who just knocked off the Eagles to pull into a tie for the best record in the sport.
Denver has won six of its last seven games, so next week’s matchup doesn’t look great for the Lions, either -- especially considering how they have played at Ford Field this season.
In the past four games, the Lions have played a great three-minute stretch at the end of the Bears win, a great first quarter against the Saints, and a great second quarter in Chicago. Otherwise, they haven’t looked remotely like a playoff team.
Those dominant, imposing performances of September and October feel like the distant past.
The Lions are still in position to win the division and host a playoff game if they can right the ship in the next few weeks weeks. But this looks like a team trending in the wrong direction.
And the timing couldn’t be worse.
