October 18, 2021
Things started out rosy for the Bears Sunday against Green Bay. Green Bay had the first possession and the Bears disguises on defense had QB Aaron Rodgers befuddled. He was sacked twice and Green Bay punted. The Bears scored a touchdown to take a 7-0 lead. They stopped the Packers on their second possession and were driving for a second score. Packers nose tackle Kenny Clark jumped off-sides and Bears QB Justin Fields thought he had a free play. He overthrew Allen Robinson and the ball was intercepted. Problem was no flag was thrown and the momentum switched to the Packers. Rodgers figured things out and made clutch plays when needed, leading the Packers to a 24-14 victory. After scoring a touchdown to give the Packers a fourth quarter 10 point lead, Rodgers screamed at the crowd “I own you” a couple of times. Although this may seem harsh it’s also true. Rodgers is 22-5 against the Bears in his storied career. By the way, Bears coach, Matt Nagy, is 1-6 versus the Packers.
A rookie quarterback is going to have their ups and downs. Justin Fields is no different. However, he has shown that his future is bright. On the Bears first scoring drive he completed three of three crisp passes for 46 yards. With the Packers up 17-7, Fields engineered another impressive drive. He was five for five for 64 yards. He also had a couple of nice runs. The Bears scored a touchdown that was taken back by a holding penalty. Fields got them back in the end zone with a touchdown pass to Darnell Mooney. Overall Fields was 16-27 for 174 yards, with 43 yards on six carries. Sixth round pick Khalil Herbert, starting due to injuries was also a big contributor. He has great vision and quickness to avoid traffic jams at the line. He had 19 carries for 97 yards, averaging over 5 yards per carry.
The biggest problem with the offense was the play calling. I don’t know if you can criticize Bill Lazor’s play calling because he has Nagy’s playbook. The Packers had three backups in the secondary and instead of attacking the middle, they sent every receiver deep. They never got into their routes before Fields was being chased. They had no check down receiver underneath. All the offensive coaches have to be whacked before they ruin Fields.
The Bears have a pretty good defense. This would be an elite defense if they knew how to tackle, especially the two safeties. Aaron Rodgers was not having a monster game, so the missed tackles were critical. Tashaun Gipson missed a tackle allowing A.J. Dillon to gain 36 yards that set up a Packers field goal. He also failed to tackle Aaron Jones who caught a pass two yards behind the line of scrimmage for a 12 yard touchdown. Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson
, did a pretty good job covering DaVante Adams, limiting him to four receptions. The one reception on the Packers final scoring drive really hurt. The completion gained 41 yards. This could have been cut in half had Eddie Jackson made the tackle. Instead he tried to bump him out of bounds, rather than wrap him up. And he would have had a touchdown if he hadn’t stepped out of bounds at least 10 yards after the hit. These were the most costly but there was many other instances of bad tackling technique.
There were a couple other things that irked me. Last week Nagy took undue credit for the offense, stating all the plays ultimately run through him. In the loss there was no accountability. When the camera showed Fields on the sideline, there were no coaches talking to him. I know Khalil Mack is nursing an injury and needs to take plays off. Yet I can’t understand why they rest him on third down passing situations.
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