Nothing could top off the beginning of the 2015 Packer season better than a 31-23 win over the loathsome Chicago Bears. To the Bears’ credit, they kept the contest close for most of the game. Matt Forte had another great day against our defense and Cutler ALMOST got out of the game without throwing a pick until Clay Matthews happened. The Chicago faithful should hold their heads high because the Bears did look and feel like a different team. It seems like John Fox and Ryan Pace are adding a bit more confidence and life back into this franchise. So stop whining to me about all of your problems, Bears fans. I just really don’t care about you or your feelings.
But, enough about meaningless Bears talk, the team of the hour is the Green Bay Packers. Let us jump into some of the things I saw out on the field today.
The Good
Man, oh man. There was a lot of positive stuff going on in today’s game that eventually lead to the W. How can I not start this list off without mentioning the MVP himself, Aaron Rodgers. He was making perfectly placed throws, escaping the pocket pressure, scrambling for first downs, using the snap count. Just everything we expect from him was on display once again this afternoon. It’s great to see him back at 100%.
We all saw that coming, but how many of us saw that James Jones would have this big of an impact in his first game back in the green and gold? Welcome back James! It was like watching a 2010 Packer game again. Shoutout to the Giants for making this wonderful reunion possible.
Cobb and Adams seemed to play well today too, so I’m confident that the receivers can pick up any production lost with the Jordy Nelson injury. Ty Montegomery had a great day returning the ball as well. Eddie Lacy was Eddie Lacy. This offense is coming into the season firing on all cylinders.
We also didn’t mess up an onside kick recovery! Woo!
The Bad
Aaaaaaaand then we get to the defense; granted they played well as a whole. Peppers and Matthews (obviously) had great games. The secondary got their hands on some throws to force a couple incompletions here and there. Cutler got hit and sacked a couple of times so kudos to the pass rush.
It seemed fine, until you watch the run defense. Nobody is plugging into the holes! Might as well just laid a red carpet out for Forte. That inside linebacker position is looking very weak at the start of the the season, and it doesn’t help the Pack that Sam Barrington left the game in the first half with an ankle injury. Hopefully it’s not serious and he’ll get back to helping the D sooner than later. But man, was that run defense just as porous as ever? Every year I watch every running back in the league go through our defense like we are made of feathers.
The tackling was once again annoyingly horrendous. I’m not even going to look at how many first downs the Packers gave up on 3rd down in this game. Okay, the Bears were 11-17 on 3rd down. Ugh.
The Ugly
So many dumb penalties. An offsides here, a holding there. David Bakhtiari had a very untimely false start, and then Sam Shield’s offside on a field goal attempt led to a touchdown. In total, the Packers had 10 penalties for 74 yards. With that amount of penalties and James Jones back on the field, it really did feel like 2009 again. Hopefully it’s only due to Week 1 jitters and what not.
Also, Shields was not looking that sharp for a guy who is supposed to be our number one cover guy. He misplayed a few balls and had that offsides penalty on Robbie Gould’s field goal attempt. It just seemed for every good play he had, he also had three bad ones. Don’t worry Sticky, I still got your back. You’ll get them next time.
Well that’s about it for today. Great game, great win. Lets do this again next week against Seattle because there is no other team I despise more right now than the Seahawks.
Sources:
http://www.si.com/game/8851581/box-score
Photos from Jim Biever (packers.com)