What we learned from the Detroit Lions’ Week 17 victory over the Chicago Bears

We start with ‘the standard of football’ that Decker spoke of:

It has been a tale of two seasons for the Lions – the 1-6 record at the start, and 7-2 in the last nine games that has brought them to 8-8 overall going into Sunday’s game at Green Bay.

The Lions have shown an ability to adapt. Sunday’s game was an example of that. The offense ran for 255 yards, and the defense harassed Bears quarterback Justin Fields into seven sacks.

The Lions controlled the game on both sides of the ball.

“We want to go out there and perform at that standard every single week,” Decker said. “It’s a question of are we going to do that every single week? We have to do that every single week.”

With few exceptions, the Lions recently have played like a team with a 7-2 record. They wanted to get the running game going, and they did just that.

“Recently, offensively we hadn’t run the ball as well as we like to,” Decker said. “There was a big emphasis on that coming into this week.”