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Green Bay Packers: Strengths and Weaknesses of the Bears

By Trevor Bender

GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN - NOVEMBER 29: Mitchell Trubisky #10 of the Chicago Bears fumbles the ball during the 1st half of the game against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field on November 29, 2020 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)
GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN - NOVEMBER 29: Mitchell Trubisky #10 of the Chicago Bears fumbles the ball during the 1st half of the game against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field on November 29, 2020 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images) /
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The Green Bay Packers take on the Bears in Week 17. Here are the strengths and weaknesses of this Bears team.

The Green Bay Packers have not been shy about wanting the top-seed in the NFC, with Aaron Rodgers saying that he would like to play an NFC championship game in Lambeau Field. The Bears, on the other hand, can get into the playoffs with a win against the Green Bay Packers.

All of this makes for a fun week 17 matchup, and if that isn’t enough, just remember this is also the longest rivalry in professional sports. So sit back and enjoy this fun Week 17 matchup. As I do every week, I am going to look at the strengths and weaknesses of this Bears team and how the Packers match up with them.

Strengths

As has been the case for a long time, the strength of this Chicago Bears team has been the defense. This Bears defense is not as dominant as it was back in 2018, but it is still a top 10 defense by most metrics. The Bears have given up the ninth fewest points per game, Football Outsiders DVOA ranks this Bears defense at seventh-best, and lastly PFF ($) ranks the Bears defense as the fourth-best in the NFL.

PFF grades the Bears pass rush as the best part of their defense, with a grade of 82, which is sixth-best in the NFL. This is especially important for this Week 17 matchup against the Green Bay Packers as the Packers have been the second-best pass-blocking offensive line in the NFL. The issue for the Green Bay Packers is they have lost their All-Pro left tackle David Bakhtiari for the remainder of the season, which potentially makes the biggest strength of this Bears team an even bigger one.

This is one of the main things to watch in this game. If the Packers can keep Aaron Rodgers clean, that bodes well for the playoff run as this offense is much different if Rodgers does not have a consistently clean pocket to throw from.

The Bears offense also has a strength that I want to touch on, and that is running the football. This Bears’ rushing attack has been good recently, PFF ranks them the 11th best rushing attack in football. That is a very high ranking considering how much they struggled to run the ball early in the season.

David Montgomery has been playing extremely well in recent weeks, however, the Green Bay Packers’ run defense has been trending in the right direction as of late. Derrick Henry was a player a lot of fans were concerned would have a huge game against the Packers, but on 23 carries, he totaled just 98 yards, which is an average of 4.26 yards per carry and is mediocre by Henry’s lofty standards. The addition of Damon ‘Snacks’ Harrison is important for the stretch run of the season, but at this time, we are unsure if he will be able to play in this Week 17 matchup.

Weaknesses

The Bears offense is still the weakness of this team as it has been for many years. The difference for this matchup is that Chicago is playing well heading into this Week 17 matchup. However, to me, that is a bit of fool’s gold. In their last four matchups, they have played defenses that all rank in the bottom seven in points per game, with the Lions and Jaguars being the two worst in the league in regards to points per game.

The last time they played a top half the league defense (in points per game) was the Packers in Week 12. If you remember that game, the Packers were blowing them out 41-10 until garbage time. I still do not think the Bears have a good offense, and the advanced metrics agree with me. PFF ranks the Bears as the 20th best offense, while Football Outsiders DVOA ranks the Bears as the 25th best offense. I think this is a good test for the defense to go out and prove that of the two units that are trending in the right direction that the Green Bay defense is the better unit over this Bears offense.

Defensively, there is not much in terms of weakness, so I might be stretching calling this a weakness, but it is something to watch for in this game. PFF grades multiple aspects of both offensive and defensive units, and one of the factors on defense that they look at is tackling. As a group, the Bears’ defense worst grade comes in tackling.

With the emergence of AJ Dillon, this seems like something to watch and see if Dillon and Aaron Jones can have a big day against this Bears defense. Again, this is a stretch because they are ranked 10th in the league for tackling, so it is not a true weakness, but it may be their biggest one. Just for comparison, the Green Bay Packers rank 26 in the league in PFF’s tackling grade.

One last thing to monitor in regards to the Bears defense is that they are missing two of their cornerbacks going into this game. Not an overall weakness for the team in normal weeks but with two cornerbacks out, their coverage might be an issue this week.

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