Good morning, everyone. The Green Bay Packers took on the Chicago Bears on Sunday at Soldier Field. This was the 203rd meeting between the two teams in a rivalry that has spanned 100 years (back then, the Bears were known as the Staleys). It wasn’t pretty at times, but the Packers got their 5th straight win. Want to know what exactly happened? Let’s find out now.
The Bears won the coin toss, but they deferred to the second half. As a result, the Packers were on offense to start the game. They were able to move the ball down the field with a mission to get the first touchdown of the game. In the end, the drive did not result in any points. On third and 10 from the Chicago 36, Aaron Rodgers was sacked by Khalil Mack for a loss of 9 yards. An unfortunate thing that happened during the drive was a knee injury to Josh Myers, who came back in this game after a finger injury sidelined him. Hopefully it’s not too serious. Corey Bojorquez punted the ball to the 9 yard line of Chicago, but Jakeem Grant was able to return it to the 20 for 11 yards. From there, the Bears went down the field for a touchdown on their first drive. It was way too easy for the Bears (other than a botched snap that they luckily recovered). There was no pass rush at all, giving rookie QB Justin Fields plenty of time to find an open target. It did not help that there was a pass interference penalty in the end zone against Isaac Yiadom that gave the Bears the ball at the 1. Khalil Herbert finished off the drive with a 1-yard touchdown run. After the extra point by Cairo Santos, the Bears were up 7-0 with 6:45 left in the first quarter. The next drive for Green Bay ended in a three and out. On second and 7 from the Green Bay 28, Rodgers was sacked for a loss of 7 yards by Robert Quinn, who mocked the belt celebration after the sack (he shouldn’t have done that). Third and 14 was a give up play that only gained 4 yards. During the punt return by Jakeem Grant, there was an illegal block penalty against Chicago that nullified the return and forced the Bears to start at their own 15. Khalil Herbert gained 25 yards on the first down run, which was not ideal. A few plays later, however, Justin Fields forced a throw into the end zone that was easily intercepted by Darnell Savage (Kenny Clark was offside, but, luckily, it wasn’t called). From their own 20, the Packers offense took over after the pick by Savage. During the drive, the Packers faced a fourth and inches after Robert Tonyan was ruled short on his third down catch. Aaron Rodgers was able to get the first down on a QB sneak. 2 plays later, Rodgers connected with Davante Adams for a 32-yard pass play that brought the Packers to the Chicago 22. The drive ultimately ended with a very creative goal-line touchdown. Aaron Jones was moving before the snap. At the snap, Rodgers did a fake handoff to Jones and made a flip pass to Allen Lazard for a 1-yard TD. The extra point kick was good from Mason Crosby, tying the game up at 7-7 with 9:59 left in the second quarter. The next drive for the Bears was a three and out after Justin Fields was sacked by Jonathan Garvin on third and 9 from the Bears 30. Amari Rodgers was able to return the punt 16 yards to the Green Bay 42. From there, the Packers went down the field for another score. AJ Dillon started the drive well with a 36 yard run to the Chicago 22. After that though, the drive stalled. Equanimeous St. Brown was robbed of a touchdown after a horrendous offensive pass interference call. First off, he was touched first by the defender. Second, he was initially ruled out of bounds. After the refs talked a bit, he was ruled inbounds. The touchdown was nullified due to the horrible penalty anyway. The drive ended with a 39-yard field goal by Mason Crosby that gave the Packers a 10-7 lead with 4:09 left in the first half. The Bears then went on a drive that pretty much took up the rest of the clock. The Bears were able to get in field goal range while also getting lucky that Adrian Amos did not pick off Justin Fields (very tough to overrule that one). The Bears ended up punting after Fields was sacked for a loss of 10 yards by Dean Lowry. After the punt, Rodgers kneeled to end the half.
The Packers defense was able to force the Bears to punt after only 5 plays to start the second half. Unfortunately, Darnell Savage suffered a head injury on the first play. He is now in the concussion protocol, which I hope is not too long. The Packers offense started their next drive at their own 10 after the punt. From there, they went down the field with a mix of run and pass plays. One of those plays was a 28-yard run by Aaron Jones on the second play of the drive. Later in the drive, Aaron Jones caught two straight passes from Aaron Rodgers. The second pass play was a 12-yard touchdown in which Jones evaded a defender and leaped into the end zone. After the PAT kick by Mason Crosby, the Packers’ lead was increased to 17-7 with 6 minutes left in the third quarter. The following 2 drives (one by each team) resulted in punts, including a three and out by Green Bay’s offense. At least Corey Bojorquez’s punt was a long one. Yes, it went to the end zone for a touchback, but it was an 82-yard punt. At this point in the game, it was the final quarter. The Bears had the ball at their own 20, looking for a touchdown to cut the lead to 3 points. It helped for Chicago that they got chunk plays back to back that got them into scoring range. Justin Fields was able to scramble for a first down during this drive. The next few plays were another example of the Packers’ bad red zone defense. A touchdown by Khalil Herbert was nullified due to a holding penalty. Even with the penalty, the Bears were able to get a touchdown a few plays later with a 5-yard TD pass from Fields to Darnell Mooney. The extra point kick by Cairo Santos was good, decreasing Green Bay’s lead to 17-14 with 8:44 left in the fourth quarter. The Packers offense was able to answer back with a touchdown of their own in the fourth. During the drive, Aaron Rodgers found Davante Adams on a deep ball. Adams was able to get past a defender and was inches away from going all the way for a touchdown (he barely stepped out of bounds at the Chicago 21). 3 plays later, Rodgers was able to run to his right for a 6-yard touchdown. After the touchdown, he was fired up along with his teammates. He showed the belt and yelled at the fans this: “I still own you! I still own you!” That was an awesome moment for sure. Mason Crosby made the extra point, increasing the lead to 24-14 with 4:30 left in the game. The Packers defense sealed the game with Kenny Clark’s 2 sacks of Justin Fields on the next drive. Fields tried a Hail Mary, but it was incomplete, giving the Packers the ball at their own 48. From there, AJ Dillon was able to get a couple of key first downs that ended the game. The final score was 24-14 with the Packers coming up on top.
With the win, the Packers are now 5-1 on the season. For Head Coach Matt LaFleur, it was his 7th straight road division win, becoming the first head coach since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970 to win his first 7 division road games. For QB Aaron Rodgers, he is now 22-5 against the Bears in games that he started. On offense, it was rough at points, especially in the first quarter. They were able to get the job done after their jitters in that initial quarter. Even though Rodgers was sacked a few times, I thought that the offensive line did a good job against the Bears defense. Lucas Patrick was able to play well after Josh Myers exited the game with a knee injury. I was happy to see Elgton Jenkins back in action. He was the one that let out a battle cry after Rodgers’ TD run. The O-Line also played well in terms of (mostly) opening up the running lanes for Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon, who combined for 135 yards on the ground. Aaron Jones also added 34 receiving yards on 4 catches, including the 12-yard TD pass in the third quarter from Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers played well, despite throwing for under 200 yards. He was responsible for all 3 touchdowns that the Packers scored (2 passing, 1 rushing). I absolutely loved the moment when Rodgers was talking trash to the Bears fans after he scored. He wanted those fans to know that, in his words: “I still own you!” Davante Adams led the receivers with 4 catches for 89 yards, including a would’ve-been TD had he not stepped out of bounds. Equanimeous St. Brown was robbed of a touchdown due to that OPI that I mentioned earlier, and I hope that he gets redemption from that soon. It kinda stunk that Randall Cobb wasn’t able to get a touchdown against the Bears. Maybe that will happen in December. There were some rough spots on offense, but I am sure that they will clean them up in preparation for next week at Lambeau Field.
On defense, the Packers played well except in the red zone. They are still allowing a touchdown on every red zone trip by the opposing offense. The one in the fourth quarter after the holding penalty was even more troubling. They have got to fix the red zone issues quickly. Other than that, the defense had a solid game. It came at a cost due to more injuries. Preston Smith was out due to an oblique injury and Darnell Savage was put in the concussion protocol (at least Savage got the pick in the first half). Kenny Clark had a scare, but he came back and played well (and sacked Justin Fields twice in crunch time). In fact, the defensive front as a whole stepped up, including Dean Lowry and Jonathan Garvin, who each got a sack of Justin Fields. Isaac Yiadom was benched in favor of Rasul Douglas, who played solid even with an unnecessary roughness penalty at one point. Hopefully Jaylon Smith contributes more in future games. Defensive Coordinator Joe Barry has a tough task in front of him with the amount of injuries that the Packers have on defense. Even with the injuries, I hope that he will get the players ready for anything.
On Special Teams, nothing too crazy happened. Mason Crosby made every kick and Corey Bojorquez punted well (including a punt that went 100 yards from the Green Bay 7 to the end zone). A bonus was that no kicks were in danger of being blocked on Sunday. There were a couple of big returns allowed, but at least there were no TDs allowed on Special Teams. Amari Rodgers was able to return a punt more than 10 yards, which is an improvement over his earlier returns. I was just glad that things were more normal on Sunday for Green Bay, not just on Special Teams, but on offense and defense.
Overall, it is always satisfying for the Packers to beat the Bears, especially on their home field. What’s most important is that the Packers have a 2-game lead over the Bears and Vikings in the NFC North after 6 weeks. Hopefully the Packers can keep it up against the Washington Football Team at Lambeau Field in Week 7. I’ll talk about that game later. For now, it’s a Victory Monday for the Packers. Go Pack Go!
(Here are the highlights of the game, provided by the NFL’s YouTube page.)
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