Around the NFC North: 2024 Week Two
Haha the Lions lost!
By Mike Price
The Bears rookie QB was meh. The Lions lost. The Vikings have some weird QB stuff going on. And the Packers won! Back to the good ole days this week.
Detroit Lions
The Lions succumbed to the Bucs 20-16.
Game Notes
- Tampa Bay's defense is tailor made for playing the Lions. They want to stop the run. They want to use fancy pressures to make the QB nervous. They have plenty of guys who can cover tight ends. In this game, it worked to perfection. Jared Goff was 34/55 for 307 yards and two picks and the Lions managed just 16 points. The only reason the game was as close as it was was because the punter completed a 17 yard pass on a fake on fourth down deep in the Lions' own territory.
- It's worth mentioning that the Lions had 463 yards to the Bucs's 216. It was just a lot empty calorie yards while losing and too many turnovers.
- Half of the Lions stars played well. The Sun God was back with 119 yards on 11 catches and Jahmyr Gibbs had 106 total yards (though 22 yards on 7 catches is insanely meh). David Montgomery did not have a great day and Sam LaPorta had just two catches for 13 yards. LaPorta is a big problem for me. I have him on a fantasy team so that I wouldn't be too depressed for the Lions to be good for the first time in my lifetime. But now he's bad? So I wasted a ton on a tight end, the third worst position in fantasy. Terrible.
- Jameson Williams, everyone's breakout star, had a solid game with 79 yards, a long of 50, and a run for 15 yards.
- Even more depressing than any nonsense with my fantasy team is that the Lions defense looks good. Aidan Hutchinson had 5 sacks! Brian branch had a great pick. The Bucs didn't even hit 200 pass yards. Maybe the secret to running a good NFL defense is letting the same guy call it for four straight years while also lucking into the Jaguars taking Travon Walker.
Next Week
The Lions take on the Cardinals.
Vikings
The Vikings upset the 49ers 23-17.
Game Notes
- This is the rare win for the Vikings that I fully support. You'd be hard-pressed to get me to want the 49ers to win against anyone and what's funnier than watching Vikings fan fall for the Sam Darnold scam? The Scam Darnold. Speaking of Darnold, he was 17/26 for 268 yards, two TDs and a pick. Pretty good!
- Also nice for us was that Ty Chandler had 82 yards on 10 carries and Aaron Jones had 32 on nine. Who would've guessed that after that week one Josh Jacobs would have 5x Jones' yards in week two.
- Justin Jefferson had a 97-yard touchdown. Apparently his eyes work differently than normal humans or something. Which begs the question: is it really fair for the Vikings to be playing with mutants? They should be forced to trade him to the most honorable team in the division.
- Brian Flores is back again and the Vikings' defense played really well against the 49ers. Last week, Flores used no cover 0 and ran quarters on 40% of snaps. A total change from what they did last year. In this one he was deep in his bag again, running cover-2 from a front with 7 men on the LOS. Flores' defense tailed off last year and we'll see if he can keep up the momentum this year, no matter what, he'll be doing interesting stuff.
- As far as the players go, former Badger Andrew Van Ginkel had another great game with a sack, two TFLs and a pass defensed.
Next Week
The Vikings take on the Texans.
Bears
The Bears lost to the Texans 19-13.
Game Notes
- Caleb Williams broke the century mark in this one! He also threw two picks, took seven sacks, averaged just 4.7 yards per attempt and caused DJ Moore to rip his helmet off in disgust at least once. According to The Ringer's Austin Gayle, no QB has had fewer yards per attempt over the first two weeks of a season in the last ten years. Nice.
- Williams also led the team in rushing (44 yards) thanks to prized free agent D'Andre Swift managing just 18 yards on 14 carries.
- The defense played pretty well against the Texans. They held CJ Stroud under 300 yards and under a 100 QB rating. Three Bears had a sack, including former Badger Jack Sanborn. It's maddening how many NFL teams have great linebackers who went to Wisconsin (I know some of these are edges but: Steelers, Vikings, Bears, Eagles, Bears again, Chiefs, Steelers again) and the Packers haven't had a consistently good linebacker in like a century. Half of those guys weren't even drafted!
- Speaking of Badgers, TJ Edwards had 8 tackles in this one and Dare Ogunbawale had two catches for 20 yards for Houston.
Next Week
The Bears play the Colts.
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Mike Price is a lifelong Packers fan who recently moved from Utah to Stoughton (a Madison suberb). You can follow him on twitter at @themikeprice.
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Comments (6)
Leatherhead
September 17, 2024 at 12:17 pm
Minus the 98 yarder, Darnold was 16 for 25 for 170 yards. That's decent, but not overly impressive. Once again, you see that a long pass play does more damage than quite a few successful runs. It's a passing league.
Minnesota getting off to a quick start is nothing new. They did it last year. They've done it dozens of times. And as surely as the sunset, they find a way to fade by Thanksgiving.
Bears: Williams might be a great QB someday, but he isn't now. The Bear defense is real, certainly one of the best we'll face this year.
Lions: Yes, the genius Dan Campbell had his QB throw short of the sticks on 4th down with the game on the line. The Lions have peaked. They won't win 12 games this season, they won't go to the Championship game.
Coldworld
September 17, 2024 at 12:44 pm
The Bears D has not really been challenged by anything I’d consider a true test. A lot of hype, but I will wait and see. They have a pretty easy early schedule. Partly that’s because of who they have played and partly because there’s not been a need to take that manny risks. The Texans’ O hasn’t really fired yet this year beyond Mixon against a bad Colts run D.
The Vikings are a bogey team for the 49ers. Certainly they did not play to expectations. I think the Vikings have won that matchup at home 8 times in a row now. In the end, that was a game decided on a speculative long bomb to perhaps the best WR in the game where McCaffrey was missing. That made a big difference the last time he was out too.
That game saw a lot of odd mistakes and luck plays like a thrice , if not four player bobbled interception. Purdy had a nightmare and at least one of the turnovers appeared to have little to do with the defense. Great outcome for the Vikings, but probably not indicative of much for either team, though with Deebo out for a while too, it’s a good month to play the 49ers generally.
Starrbrite
September 17, 2024 at 02:22 pm
LH, not sure why you received two thumbs down.
I don’t Lions have peaked, but I’ve said it several times—Dan Campbell is a big dufus. TheirbO-Coord is good. They threw 55x’s last week and I bet they do the same against the Cards.
Colin Cowerd placed the Vikes in his top ten hierarchy—geez—really Colin, you’ve haven’t seen this movie before?
Bears D is good.
GregC
September 17, 2024 at 01:54 pm
Maybe Sam Darnold is not that bad and is finally getting some good coaching. He has plenty of weapons at his disposal. It will be very interesting to see how the Packers match up with the Vikings in a couple weeks.
dobber
September 17, 2024 at 02:05 pm
Goff will goff up a couple games per year: low efficiency, INTs, bad adjustments at the LOS. That's what he did on Sunday, and that's why they won't win a SB. They should've beaten Tampa but they gave it away. Hutchinson is an elite DE, but he was feasting on the TB swing tackle replacing their injured starting RT, who showed he wasn't up to playing an elite DE. Tampa couldn't get him enough help. Lions are starting to get beat up.
As much as I hate to admit it, that Vikings game could've easily been a 2-3 score final margin. Can you say Case Keenum? Sam Darnold is staked to a pretty good spot to try to resurrect his career....Keenum made it go for pretty much a whole season. I don't know if Darnold can match that...but the Vikes already showed that they couldn't handle the QB position by bailing on Keenum. They'll have to win a track meet at Houston this week...and both Jefferson and Addison are beat up.
The Bears...they make me happy.
Yes, their defense can play. They should be staking that offense to at least FGs all the time. Williams might play better. He might not. It's hard to play well when you're getting pounded because your interior OL can't protect and can't open holes to run the ball.
egbertsouse
September 17, 2024 at 05:20 pm
I I always get a kick out of reading all the trash talk about the other teams in the division. I hope that when they actually play these teams the Packers’ performance can cover all the checks being written by everyone’s mouths and fingers.