Green Bay Packers v. Bears 12 Quick Observations: “I Still Own You”
By Paul Bretl
It was a rough start on both sides of the ball for this Green Bay Packers team, but they bounced back quickly and came away with the 24-14 win over their rival, the Chicago Bears. Green Bay improves to 5-1 on the season and already has a two-game lead in the NFC North.
Now that I’ve had the opportunity to rewatch the game, as I always do, I have my quick observations from the Green Bay Packers performance. And today, there are 12 of them.
We will just forget the 1st quarter happened
On both sides of the ball, it was a less than ideal start, to say the least. For the defense, they gave up a very easy touchdown on the opening possession–although credit to them, they did settle down after that.
Meanwhile, much like last week, the Green Bay Packers’ offense struggled to find any rhythm early on. They began with some head-scratching play-calling that included few run plays and spreading things out–two things that are not a recipe for success against this Chicago pass-rush.
Fortunately, they settled in and actually ended with a fairly equal run/pass split.
The red zone
It was a mixed bag in the red zone for the Green Bay Packers. As I wrote earlier in the week, Green Bay has gone from being ranked first in red zone efficiency in 2020 to 27th through the first five games this season. Today they were 3/4, which was encouraging, and we even saw some creative play-calling inside the 20-yard line, something that Aaron Rodgers had mentioned was missing.
"“More aggressive doesn’t mean throw the ball more,” Rodgers said via Packers.com. “It just means we have a ton of scheme down there, and let’s keep rolling it off the sheet.”"
The defense, however, still has yet to get a red zone stop. But they are doing a good job of keeping their opponents out of the red zone. The Bears made it there only twice, and the 2.6 red zone visits that the Packers are allowing each game is tied for the fifth-fewest.
More injuries
This Green Bay Packers team has had to deal with a number of injuries this season, and they experienced some more on Sunday. Fortunately, Kenny Clark was able to come back after missing a few plays, but Darnell Savage left with a concussion, Josh Myers a left knee injury, and Preston Smith with an oblique.
If you’re like me and trying to find some positives, Matt LaFleur did say that he didn’t believe Myers’ injury was season-ending, while Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Dominique Dafney can both return from IR this week. On top of that, David Bakhtiari is eligible to return to practice after being on the PUP list–we will wait and see if that’s the case.