Green Bay Packers vs. Chicago Bears:
Here is my unfiltered game day blog post of comments, observations and first impressions.
The Packers come to Soldier Field today in hopes of improving their record to 3-0 while giving the Bears their second loss of 2011. In order to do so, the Packers will be looking to keep Matt Forte under wraps, forcing Jay Cutler to make plays.
Inactive for the Packers today are:
Alex Green, Davon House, Nick Collins, Frank Zombo, Derek Sherrod, Mike Neal, Vic So’oto.
Same basic inactive lists as last week, except we substitute Nick Collins for Tramon Williams.
Mike McCarthy Pregame Show on 620 WTMJ:
Packers – Bears Rivalry: Great matchup. Great game to play or coach in.
Respect Factor among Packers – Bears players: We respect the way they play and the way they’re coached. Lovie and their staff are one of the best in the league. But don’t let the respect factor overshadow that these two teams love to get after each other.
Collins out for year: Nobody saw it coming. Nick is handling it well, going through his medical options.
Replacing Collins: Don’t look at it as Peprah taking Nick’s place. We do different things with different personnel. Both Peprah and Burnett can play both safety positions.
Tramon returns: Tramon is a big-time player for us. We play a certain way with Tramon and it’s great to have him back.
Bears Defense: Biggest statistic – they lead the league in the last 5 years in fumbles caused and recoveries, We’ve had some untimely plays against them that have hurt us.
Forte: Matt forte is a workhorse – you have to have a plan for Matt. He’;s their feayure runner and pass receiver as well:
Cutler: He played really well in the first game against Atlanta. Lost to Saints in a very loud Superdome. Cutler can make any throw in the book, he’ll be a big challenge for us.
Hester: Devin is still probably the top playmaker in the league with the ball in his hands. He’ll be a special challenge for us
Wet conditions: I’ve always felt bad weather favors the offense.
Packers vs. Bears – First Impressions – First Half:
Wow, was Finley wide open on the free play when Rogers just threw it into the end zone.
Early on, it looks like Rodgers will pick the Bears secondary apart if he’s given time.
Capers wastes no time. Blitzes Charles Woodson on two straight offensive snaps.
Greg Jennings has 6 catches for 78 yards 10 minutes into the game…
Bulaga goes down… needs some help limping off… On the training table behind the #Packers‘ bench being examined by Dr. Pat McKenzie… does not look good at all.
But no matter who the Packers lose, there’s always Jay Cutler to help out the Pack. Nice throw jay – Burnett intercepts.
Wow, those Kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhns cheers are loud at Soldier Field. Way to go Pack fans!
Good job by Finley keeping his hand under the ball on his 2nd TD.
You have to think the Bears will move Peppers to Newhouse’s side. If Newhouse survives that, then we’re OK…
Packers defenders slipping all over the place…
Bears touchdown comes against a 3-man rush with Jarius Wynn in coverage. Not sure I like that in the red zone.
Bears keep seeing invisible Packers moving before the snap.
Newhouse called for a false start, buy playing-wise, he’s been doing just fine.
The Bears have spikes sticking out of their “newly sodded” field. What a bunch of amateurs.
How does a defense completely lose track of Matt Forte in the middle of the field? Embarrassing
As against Carolina, Clay Matthews once again getting nowhere against a second-string nobody offensive tackle. That would be fine if he was opening up space for the Packers other pass-rush specialist – oh wait, there isn’t one…
When you have one guy who can rush the passer, you don’t have a pass rush.
Second Half:
Fairly amazing how Ryan Grant and James Starks have completely reversed roles. Grant finding the holes and big yardage, Starks hesitant and getting swallowed up.
Can’t remember the last time I’ve seen so many false start penalties in a game.
Johnny Knox wide open, but hears the Peprah footsteps. Looks up to locate Charlie and drops the ball. takes the hit anyway.
Late in the 3rd quarter, I’m left wondering: Will the #Packers break their personal Groundhog day scenario and actually put a team away?
Wow, Jamari Lattimore is fast. Circles around and tackles Knox on the kickoff return.
Nightmare day for Starks continues. Now he fumbles. Bears recover, ball comes out. MM challenges. Might as well. Call upheld. As any amateur lip-reader can tell, MM though it was a horseshit call.
Starks fumble leads to a quick TD for the Bears. Packers again find a way to keep opponents in games.
Sam Shields, you may want to consider using your arms to wrap up and not turning your back when you go in for a tackle.
Aaron Rodgers throws his first interception of the season. I guess we can’t exactly complain, can we…
Six minutes left, Packers up by 10 with the ball. I’m thinking it’s time for a Randall Cobb big play on offense…
Wow, James Jones actually switched the ball to the outside hand that time… finally!
Packers D gets a 4th down stop with just over 2 min left. What? Donald Driver won’t have to recover an onsides kick this week?
Almost spoke too soon, as Johnny Knox Punt return for a TD is called back…
Exhale…
3-0 baby!
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Jersey Al Bracco is the founder and editor of AllGreenBayPackers.com, and the co-founder of Packers Talk Radio Network. He can be heard as one of the Co-Hosts on Cheesehead Radio and is the Green Bay Packers Draft Analyst for Drafttek.com.
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Could have been more comfortable but suppose you can’t complain too much about beating a division rival on the road having never trailed.
Grant ran well. Very pleased for him and us think we’ll need him before the year is out. Hopefully Starks bounces back on better ground next week.
D stepped it up 2nd half without the fumble we probably shut them out..
Most important thing 3-0…
The D struggled early on but I thought they showed shades of being a good defense.
That being said we can’t get So’oto and Zombo back soon enough.
Offense looked great but some of those back-to-back playcalls were absolutely idiotic. Especially when said playcalls were given to Starks.
Oy vey.
I agree about SO’oto – but what does it say when we are so hoping for an undrafted rookie to be the pass rush savior?
For some reason (maybe he’s hurt), Matthews seems to be engaging his blocker, then standing there trying to read the QB instead of attacking. I get the whole concept of containment, but Matthews is too talented to waste strictly on containment assignments.
I don’t think we can call it containment this week. Against cam Newton, sure. Jay Cutler? No reason for it. He is standing up a lot, letting blockers get into his body.
Not saying it was a contain situation, but Jay Cutler -is- known to make big plays with his feet.
Maybe not as mobile as Rodgers, and certainly no Vick, but Cutler can hurt you with his mobility and ability to make throws on the run.
Yeah I agree. Matthews was still making plays and being disruptive, though. Sometimes the sack number doesn’t say everything, but he wasn’t playing as low as he usually does. I wonder if his quad injury has anything to do with it.
Oh and just to echo Al Newhouse did just fine. Seemed to do very well in fact …
Everyone seems to be going after Shields for his lack of physicality. Up until The last two weeks I agree completely. Watching him play this game, however, I thought he played pretty well and attacked receivers. Seems like people are picking apart a single play; his overall body of work tonight looked pretty good to me. But then, I haven’t (and won’t) watch the game again to validate it.
Yeah the people who have been picking on Shields don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re being reactionary. He’s not perfect by any means, but to say that he’s some sort of weakness or poor player? Ignorance. Couple of bad games. His full season of work speaks much more loudly than 2 early season games.
I mostly agree, Oppy, but one of my pet peeves is DBs going for the cut block tackle instead of wrapping the arms, as he did later on with a picture-perfect tackle.
I’m hoping getting So’oto and/or Zombo back helps out our pass rush. So’oto looked like such a physical presence in the pre-season you’d like to think he’d make a few O linemen a bit jumpy and ease the burden on everyone else trying to get home. Same goes for Neal.
See my comment to wagszilla above…
Al, not looking for a savior, but any sort of increased physicality has got to help, right?
So’oto in particular exuded the kind of crazy-man savagery that Kevin Greene loves and demands OLinemen’s attention. That’s what Cullen Jenkins also brought to the table from the DE position, and if we go back a bit, Corey Williams brought from the interior DT positions, too.
Having that kind of relentless motor, like a buzz saw, is at the very least distracting to the Oline, and hopefully occupies more than one player’s attention. I don’t know what happened to the mad man that was Eric Walden. In preseason, he was a man possessed. In the regular season, he has disappeared.
Woodson was engulfed all day today as well. We just need to inject something new into this defense’s pass rush. What So’oto (apparently) brings to the table should be infectious and helpful. Nothing more, nothing less.
Oh, i don’t disagree, just pointing out the irony of how disappointing everyone else has been that we’re pining for an undrafted rookie who has never played a game.
I just get the feeling that in pre season Walden (and So’oto) played without fear.Now I feel Walden may be concentrating so hard on being solid that he loses that edge to his game. Or possibly I’m overanalysing and Walden just doesn’t have the skills to be a good NFL pass rusher and his big game against the Bears was a freak. Whatever we need more out of the OLB position in pass rush. Positive run D was superb…
D held passing yds under 300 = Win. When the defense played attacking, aggressive man-to-man they had Cutler so confused he didn’t know what was happening. Go into to their soft zone without attacking Cutler suddenly looks like an all-pro. Well nopt an all-pro exactly.
The worse part was MM going in to stall mode just beefore the last TD. Starks, Starks pass and they get their last TD. D gets a turnover and Starks Fumble. From that point they crawled into their shell. Thank you for the block in the back Bears. Someday MM will learn not to give the opponent any chance to comeback. That’s far too stressful at the end.
Enogh it was a victory and the D showed their ability to play at that high level again. Run defense if great. Keep the pressure up and dumb the soft zone and the Pack will be very hard to beat.
New house did a very nice job filling in. Hed deserves a real atta boy. Any news on Bulaga? that was an injury I never planned on. BAD!
If you consider how little Newhouse has practiced as a RT, how little Newhouse has played in the NFL, and what kind of opponent Newhouse faced, that’s an All-Pro performance. I don’t think he allowed a QB hurry.
Any news on Bulaga?
They usually don’t give details until the Web presser by McCarthy…
I know this is a little into the future, but that Thanksgiving Day game with the Lions on National TV is starting to look truly BIG!
Nothing I love more than Packers on Thanksgiving…
did anyone else notice that it was more of the bears sucking on offense than the packers doing well on D? how many times did they drop a key pass or cutler made a bad throw on an open man? besides, we werent getting any pass rush on THE worst o-line in the league
I know there’s a lot of frustrating things we can take away from this game, but there’s one fundamental everyone should remember. This ends a streak of these games being decided by 7 points or less. Bears always give Packers fits, but this was the least they’ve been able to do in a while.