CHICAGO—Expressing concerns that they could give away a huge advantage by getting the Bears QB benched, the Detroit Lions switched to a loose “no-coverage” style defense Sunday to prevent Mitch Trubisky from losing his starting job. “If we’re not careful, Mitch could throw straight into double coverage, or worse chuck a pick-six, then he’s likely to be benched permanently,” said Lions head coach Matt Patricia, reminding his cornerbacks and safeties to zero-team the Bears’ wide receivers and setting up his tackles and defensive ends 15 yards back from the line of scrimmage during a timeout. “Hopefully, he can eke out another 50 to 100 yards and postpone being demoted for a few more games, because at this point in the year, we can’t afford to screw this up. Last week was focused entirely on getting our guys comfortable taking their eyes off the ball, eliminating hustle, and losing any type of situational awareness just to be careful. But you never know, Trubisky can pull some pretty amazing interceptions out of nowhere.” Patricia added that with any luck, Trubisky could secure the starting job for the rest of the season and help push the Lions towards a wild card birth.

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