Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and to me Sunday’s win over the Bears was absolutely gorgeous. To hear Brian Urlacher crying like a little schoolboy who lost his candy to the bully was even better. All week Urlacher preached how bad he and the Bears wanted to keep the Packers out of the playoffs, but after the Packers battered the Bears to a pulp Urlacher said “I don’t care, we already had everything wrapped up, it may have been big to them but it means nothing to me.” Sounds like a woman scorned.
Urlacher has always been a dick and it is coming out more and more in his later years, kind of like a certain quarterback who used to play in Green Bay. Urlacher isn’t even the best linebacker on his team and was clearly outplayed by the likes of Eric Walden of the Packers, who had 11 tackles and two sacks to Urlacher’s five tackles. Can you say overrated?
Now that my rant is out of the way I can elaborate on the beauty of beating the Bears. The Packers didn’t just beat the Bears, they beat them at their own game – defense! The Packers beat up and shut down the Bears with a wild combination of blitzes and stout play against the run in holding the Bears to just a field goal. The Bears only got close to getting a TD once and like most of their drives they ended up going backwards at the end. Bears QB Jay Cutler took a beating and each time got up slower and slower.
The Packers got gashed by Matt Forte for a couple of long runs early but quickly adjusted and kept him in check the rest of the game. Of course shutting down a limited offense like the Bears isn’t quite the same as trying to contain Mike Vick and the Philadelphia Eagles, but it is certainly a confidence builder. The Packers’ defense has been insanely good the last half of the season and just simply don’t allow teams to score on them. The most points they gave up since the first Vikings game is 24 to New England and seven of those were the result of special teams letting an 800-pound man run 71 yards with a kick return.
The Packers’ D has pitched one shutout, held three other opponents to three points and two others to just seven points. Good stuff. This is a far cry from last year at this time when the Packers inability to stop the pass was a huge concern going into the playoffs and came to fruition in a 51-45 overtime loss to the Cardinals. This year’s defense is going in to the playoffs playing their best football of the season.
The emergence of B.J. Raji has given mad scientist Dom Capers so many options that teams don’t know what to prepare for. Every week he breaks out a new formation. To think he is doing it with the likes of players like Walden is simply amazing, I mean, you know you’ve had a lot of injuries when you have a linebacker wearing number 93. I thought I was watching a college game there for a minute.
Having said all that I am extremely pleased that the Packers don’t have to play Bears again this week. The previous weeks loser always has the edge especially when they have the game at home. I think the Eagles are much better matchup for the Packers. The lesser of two evils if you will, because we all know the Packers have a long history in Philly and 90% of it is bad.
Another fun week in Green Bay, Fox 11’s Playoff Extra is on again. Life is good for six more days anyway.