Green Bay Packers: 4 Matchups to Watch in Week 12

Packers Run Defense vs. Bears Run Offense

And now the matchup that I am most excited to see, simply because I have no idea what’s going to happen. As you probably are aware, the Packers can’t stop the run. You might have also heard that the Bears are incapable of running the ball, even with starting running back David Montgomery set to return to action this week.

It’s bad vs. bad, and something has to give. The Bears are dead last in rushing yards per game at just 78.2. That’s not a perfect stat because if they’re behind, they won’t be running as much, so let’s look at yards per carry. In that category, they’re only second-worst to the Dolphins at 3.6. These guys cannot run the ball.

Last year, the Packers came out of the gate week one with the strategy of stopping the run. Tramon Williams said after the game that they knew if they made Trubisky try to beat them that they’d get the victory. Hopefully, they go with that again, but the concern is that Mike Pettine sees these horrible rushing stats, puts seven defensive backs on the field every down, and gives up big runs to a team who shouldn’t be able to run the ball. This would keep Aaron Rodgers off the field and keep the Bears in the game.

With basic statistics, it’s not easy for one to see how truly bad this Green Bay Packers defense has been at stopping the run this season. They are 20th in yards per carry, which is below-average but not by much. However, their inability to get teams to third-and-long or even medium situations has killed them. They couldn’t get teams like the Vikings and Colts off the field to let Rodgers carve up their defenses, and they lost both games because of it. The Packers had just six offensive snaps in the third quarter last week, and that was partially because the offense was incapable of getting first downs, but the defense has to be able to get them the ball back.