Defense
- The Bears came out playing two deep zone and worked off of that all night. It was reasonably clear they decided, like most teams before them, to stop Aaron Rogers first.
- You’d like to say that the Bears failure to stop the run all night had to do with the fact that they were playing the pass. But that’s not true. When Aaron Rogers went down, they strated throwing a safety into the box. It made no difference. Eddie Lacy still ran over them.
- Many of the longer runs came from players being out of position. The worst offense (arguably) was when James Anderson was out of position on the James Starks touchdown in the first quarter.
- There were also some occasional bouts of poor tackling out there.
- I thought the defensive backs, including the much maligned safeties, played reasonably well.
Offense
- Unlike the Bears, the Packers decided to stop the run first and make quarterback Josh McCown beat them.
- The Bears went to lots of quick, sharp throws. That basically neutralized the Packer blitz. Between that and the usual habit of the Bears of giving the offensive linemen lots of help, the Packers had a tough time getting pressure on McCown.
- I loved the throw to Brandon Marshall for the first Bears touchdown. McCown beat the blitz and the single coverage on Marshall to badly burn the Packers. That’s what needs to be done in those situations. Its the only way to stop the opponent from blitzing you to death.
- I don’t mean to be too tough on him because he did make one or two nice plays out there. But Martellus Bennett looks occasionally like he’s sleep walking out there. I think the injuries from earlier in the year might still be bothering him.
- Hard not to like the way the Bears ran out the clock in the fourth quarter. You have to do that to win. Mice work.
Miscellaneous
- I thought Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden did their usual good job. Gruden always points out the stuff that I like to know as a fan. I have no complaints.
- The Bears special teams just flat out got out played tonight. They had a blocked punt. They lost an onside kick. they left the team starting in poor field position all night. Really a poor job.
- The Bears had way too many penalties, especially compared to the Packers who played very clean. Stephen Paea had a face mask. Charles Tillman had a face mask. There was a potentially damaging holding call on Bennett call in the fourth quarter that allowed Packers head coach Mike McCarthy to save a time out. Very poor.
- Yes, and there were way too many drops. Again the Packers were relatively clean for once. But the Bears dropped them all over the field. Bennett, Forte and Marshall all had them.
- The Bears did get a turnover in the form of a Julius Peppers interception. But the game was relatively clean and they need to generate more of them.
- I know most Bears fans will be happy with this win. But I wasn’t. I was really disappointed. The offense looked good but there were to many drops and too many penalties. The special teams were bad. But my real disappointment was in the defense. I looked for this unit to respond with a clean, well played game. They were a unit that was playing poorly because of poor fundamentals. What I saw were continued problems with poor run fits and occasional bouts of bad tackling. The Bears won. But they won’t win many playing like this. The only people who should really be celebrating right now are in Detroit.