Bears stumble as Lions score 34 in 4th quarter
Chicago Bears quarterback Brian Griese fumbles while being sacked by Jared DeVries in the fourth quarter of a game in Detroit on Sunday. Detroit won 37-27. The Associated Press
October 1, 2007
DETROIT – The Detroit Lions did it all in a record-breaking fourth quarter, scoring on the ground, through the air on defense and special teams.
The new-look win took the place of a here-we-go again loss for a team that used to be the NFL’s laughingstock.
“Luck is turning our way,” Roy Williams said after Detroit beat the Chicago Bears 37-27 Sunday. “We’re a 3-1 ballclub and not a lot of teams can say that.”
No other team in league history can say they scored 34 points in the final quarter as Detroit did against the defending NFC champions, and no game included a combined 48 points in the fourth.
“We collapsed as a team at the end of the game,” Bears coach Lovie Smith said.
Get The Daily Illini in your inbox!
Chicago (1-3) led 13-3 after three quarters in a terribly-played game before both teams scored three times as many points in the final 15 minutes.
“It was a big finish,” Williams said.
The Bears insist they’re not finished, even though their quarterback change backfired and their banged-up team is reeling.
“Our season is not over,” Brian Urlacher said. “But we have to get better.”
“We stink right now.”
Brian Griese, starting in place of Rex Grossman, had three interceptions.
Still, the Bears still had a chance to win.
Griese threw a 1-yard pass to Desmond Clark on a fourth down with 52 seconds left to pull the Bears within three. However, the onside kick bounced to Detroit’s Casey FitzSimmons, and he returned it for a touchdown to seal the victory.
It was the kind of game Detroit used to lose as it put together one of the worst six-season stretches in NFL history – with at least 10 losses from 2001-2006 – but these might not be the same-old Lions.
Detroit is 3-1 for the first time since 2004, and it has already matched the number of wins it had last season in Rod Marinelli’s first year as coach.
“This game was probably like me – ugly,” Marinelli said. “It was also like me because it was a fight.”
The Bears, meanwhile, are off to a bad start, falling to 1-3. Chicago can only hope the season turns around as it did in 2005 when it lost three of the first four games and finished 11-5.
“It can be done,” Urlacher said. “But we’ve really got to get to work.”
At quarterback, though, it might be time for Plan C.
Griese was 34-of-52 for 286 yards with two TDs and three interceptions.
