Thursday Night Football Afterword: Packers vs Bears

The Green Bay Packers hosted the Chicago Bears in the first
Thursday game of the season.
It was the 185th installment of the rivalry.

I only watch the Bears under four circumstances: (1) they are playing the Redskins, (2) they are playing a nationally televised game, (3) they are in the postseason, and (4) when they are playing the Packers. I never miss a Bears/Packers showdown, and I made certain I would not miss last night’s game.

The Bears defense looked good. They rattled Aaron Rodgers with 3 sacks in the first half. They consistently got Rodgers and his receivers out of sync. The Packers didn’t find their way into the end zone until late in the second quarter when they faked a field goal try and punter Tim Masthay hooked up with backup TE Tom Crabtree.

Clay Matthews was undoubtedly the player of the game, notching 3.5 sacks to bring his season total to 6 after two games. Yet even his high sack count in the game accounted for just half of his team’s total. Green Bay never gave Jay Cutler much time in the pocket, and surprisingly excellent secondary coverage kept receivers from getting open for Cutler.

Despite my somewhat limited exposure to the Bears, I feel I can rightfully find fault with Chicago for this loss. In fact, I think the Bears were asking to be put in their place by the Packer defense, which has struggled since having a fantastic 2010 season on the way to a Super Bowl victory.

The Bears looked the same. Green Bay defenders said after the game that they saw it, but even I saw it. I didn’t see anything I haven’t seen from Chicago. I still am not convinced that the Packers secondary is where it needs to be, but the Bears made it easy on them by not throwing any changeups their way. The Bears’ one touchdown came on a nice throw by Cutler into pretty good coverage. The only slip in coverage was literally a slip by Tramon Williams that allowed Brandon Marshall to get wide open for a great pass from Cutler, only to drop it in the end zone.

Williams made up for that near game-changing moment by recording a pair of Green Bay’s 4 interceptions on the night. In three career starts in Green Bay, Cutler is now 0-3 with 2 touchdown passes and 10 interceptions!

But I can’t be too hard on the Bears. Green Bay’s defense played like they were possessed. They wanted to prove a point, and prove a point they did. They are clearly still capable of playing on a high level. But with showing that, expectations follow. I look forward to seeing if they can rise to them.

I don’t think the Bears are in trouble yet. Cutler’s numbers are significantly worse in Lambeau than just about anywhere else in the league. And when your offense hasn’t changed, you will struggle against division opponents. But the Bears will do fine in their out-of-division matchups, and they could give the Vikings their playbook and still beat them 9 of 10 times. The Packers will likely win their second matchup, and the Lions will give the Bears trouble. But I think the Bears will do well enough outside of the NFC North to be the second place team in the division at the end of the year, and I expect the NFC North to send two teams to the playoffs.

The Bears get 10 days off now, before hosting the Rams on Sunday, September 23. Green Bay's next game will be Week 3’s Monday Night game, when they visit Seattle.

Next week’s Thursday Night matchup will be the New York Giants at the Carolina Panthers.

If you have any ideas for what to add to my weekly posting schedule, feel free to make recommendations. I am always looking for more to write, but I don’t want to write simply for the sake of writing. As of now, I will be taking weekends off of writing until Week 16 when we have our first and only Saturday game of the season. I will be back Monday with two posts (one for the 1:00 games and another for all the other Sunday games).

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Thanks for reading!