As much as they tried to lose today’s game to the Chicago Bears, the Green Bay Packers simply couldn’t do it. No matter how hard they try, the Bears just cannot beat the Packers. Today’s loss has to be one of the most painful in the100-plus years of this rivalry. The Packers had no business winning this game, and yet it happened. Jordan Love led another game-winning drive and literally took things into his own hands on the game’s last two plays.
Love’s touchdown run gave the Packers a one-point lead after the conversion failed but left way too much time on the clock for the Packer’s defense, who couldn’t get off the field all day. They are living on the edge and with the 49ers, Dolphins and Lions on deck, that is a scary place to be.
It could have been over at halftime
The Packers offense started out well. After taking the opening kickoff the Packers went 65 yards for a touchdown. Love hit Jayden Reed on a free play and the Packers were off and running. The Packers held the Bears to a field goal on their opening drive and after exchanging punts the Packers were about to put the Bears away with a second-and-one at the Bears’ five yard line. Not to be. An ineligible man downfield penalty and a horrible five yard loss on some kind of power end round left third-and-eleven at the 15. As has been his wont, Love throws off his back foot off target and his picked off at the one on the next play. The Bears naturally marched right down the field for the their first touchdown in three weeks.
The Bears’ new offense picked apart the Packers’ defense to the tune of 391 yards and 36:21 time of possession. How they held them to 19 points is beyond me. The Bears really did simplify things for Caleb Williams this week, a lot dinking and dunking so it took a while to drive the field.
On offense the Packers did look better. Love is clearly back to full strength as evidenced by his two runs to give the Packers the lead late. And Christian Watson had a huge game, including a 60-yard catch and run to setup the go ahead touchdown. Josh Jacobs continues to be a beast in the ground game. The Packers were inside the Bears’ red zone in five of their seven possessions but only scored three times. That has to be fixed.
A win is a win and it’s on to San Francisco, who lost today and is now 5-5. It would be nice to beat them and maybe not have to face them in the playoffs this year. But we’ll worry about that later. Time to read all the Chicago newspapers again. Two weeks a year they are glorious.