Lions coach Jim Schwartz has plenty of reasons to be happy, a day after beating the Bears. On one specific point, however, Schwartz was a little salty.
“I really think that’s ridiculous,” Schwartz said regarding the notion that defensive lineman Israel Idonije tipped his new team off to his old team’s line calls, via Chris McCoskey of the Detroit News. “I think it takes away from the players that are on the field. We rushed for a lot of yards because we blocked them and Reggie Bush broke tackles. To say that Reggie Bush is eight yards behind the quarterback and he can hear what a line call is, I think that’s ridiculous.”
Some Bears players believe Idonije shared the defense’s “power” stunt call with Bush, allowing him to anticipate it -- and beat it -- every time they used it.
Even if the Lions did it, shame on the Bears for not changing their calls. They know Idonije plays for the Lions now, and they should have known that he still knows the calls. (Know what I mean?)
“I’d also like to point out that they signed [former Lions defensive tackle] Landon Cohen last week,” Schwartz said. “Landon had been here for a long time and we haven’t changed our scheme since Landon was here. I didn’t see that being a big difference in the game.
“Stuff like that comes up. It’s just the nature of the NFL. I like to concentrate on the players on the field and what happened on the field, not stupid stuff like that. I really don’t think it had any impact at all in the game.”
We realize that Schwartz would want to show that he can win without gimmicks and flukes, whether because of the efforts of the players and/or the quality of the coaching. Still, drawing out obscure details and putting them to work is part of the coaching, which Schwartz did well enough this week to be selected as the best engineered game plan on both sides of the ball, a weekly segment presented by our friends at Audi.