Detroit @ Chicago preview

Last Meeting ( Dec 16, 2017 ) Chicago 10, Detroit 20

The Chicago Bears are sitting atop the NFC North halfway through the season and are showing no signs of slowing down. The Bears will try to push their winning streak to three straight and earn another key division victory when they host the Detroit Lions on Sunday.

Chicago owns one of the best defenses in the NFL, allowing an average of 19.1 points, and that unit intends to take it up a notch during an upcoming stretch of schedule featuring division opponents. "We know that going into these division games, it’s going to take a whole other level," linebacker Leonard Floyd told reporters. "They know us, we know them. We play them twice. It’s going to take a whole new level of intensity." The Lions are in last place in the NFC North but sit only two games back of the Bears in a tightly-packed division despite scoring a total of 23 points while dropping the last two games. "We're just trying to look at it on a small scale and see what we can improve on this week and get better at," Detroit coach Matt Patricia told reporters, "and that’s kind of where we have to go when we have weeks where we feel we didn’t necessarily perform on the one day of the week that we have to perform well, perform good enough, then we’ve got to get that fixed."

TV: 1 p.m. ET, FOX. LINE: Bears -6.5. O/U: 44.

ABOUT THE LIONS (3-5): Detroit quarterback Matthew Stafford was sacked 10 times in a 24-9 loss at Minnesota last week, leading to plenty of criticism for the offensive line. "You have a day like that, it’s a little bit on everybody, obviously," Stafford told reporters. "I've got to get the ball out faster. Got to find checkdowns a little bit faster, get the ball out. You know, you get in a game situation like that, when you're down as many scores as we were late in that game, you're going to put your O-Line in a tough spot." Stafford was sacked 13 times in the first seven games and could use some help from a rushing attack that totaled 100 yards in the last two contests.

ABOUT THE BEARS (5-3): Chicago's defense will attack that suspect Detroit offensive line with a front seven that routinely harasses opposing quarterbacks into turnovers. The Bears are second in the NFL with 14 interceptions and lead the league by returning three of those for touchdowns. "It's not like our defense comes out here and just gets lucky," Bears coach Matt Nagy told reporters after watching his defense force four turnovers in a 41-9 win at Buffalo last week. "They practice taking the ball away. We preach it. It was great for so many guys on defense to force turnovers today."

EXTRA POINTS

1. Bears LB Khalil Mack (ankle) sat out the last two games and is questionable for Sunday.

2. Lions G T.J. Lang (neck) sat out practice this week and is questionable.

3. Detroit took the last three and nine of the last 10 meetings in the series.

PREDICTION: Bears 28, Lions 17