The Bears defense has been much maligned of late. But they came through yesterday with a pretty good performance. Lance Briggs explains via the Chicago Tribune:
“The last couple weeks, teams have been scoring a lot of points on us, so defensively it was important for the Packers to only get 10 points. We were effective and we did the things we needed to do. We were very disciplined, that’s really what it comes down to against a high-powered offense, to be as effective as we were.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Admittedly there were some minor picks. Aaron Rogers was able to avoid the pass rush and got out of the pocket to extend the play a lot. And, as reviewed by Vaughn McClure at the Chicago Tribune, the defensive backs made some errors that could have cost the Bears some big plays and, indeed, that did cost them at least two long completions one of which set up a touchdown.
But for the most part the Bears really cleaned things up yesterday. They were rarely out of their gaps and played good solid defense. That, combined with the Packers wide receivers dropping balls all over the field, made the game competitive on a night where the offensive performance left a lot to be desired.