Green Bay Packers (1-1) – Chicago Bears (1-1): 27-10
This time, Aaron Rodgers (19/25, 234 yards, 2 TDs) was helped. By everybody. After a discreet first game, Aaron Jones was the hero of the Packers’ attack, with 132 yards and a touchdown on the ground, but also 3 receptions for 38 yards and another pass in the end zone. The effectiveness of the ground game (203 cumulative yards) allowed Rodgers to distribute the swelling more calmly. The quarterback hit eight different targets, without forcing, and without making any mistakes.
But it was perhaps the green defense that brought the biggest boost to the collective. After conceding a touchdown from Justin Fields (7/11, 70 yards, 1 int) on the Bears’ first offensive, the Packers did not miss anything, or almost. Preston Smith (2 sacks, 8 pressures on the QB) led a determined squad.
As Chicago, trailing 24-10 in the final quarter, knocked on the door from the end zone, Smith and Jarran Reed stopped Fields a yard from touchdown on a fourth attempt. Enough to destroy the last hopes of visitors.
A quarter to make the difference
If the Packers were more effective, offensive regularity remains to be found. After a field goal to start the game, Jones scored his first touchdown early in the second quarter. The beginning of 15 auspicious minutes for his team. As the defense forces three quick punts, Jones doubles the lead, and Allen Lazard scores for the 24-7 seconds from the break.
Green Bay unfolds, but the machine jams on returning from the locker room. First with a fumble lost on a transmission between Aaron Rodgers and AJ Dillon (18 races, 61 yards). Then with a new punt, resulting in particular from a mess on a snap which caused a big loss of yards. Mistakes without consequence thanks to an applied defense, and the attack will even add a last field goal after the fourth attempt stopped by Fields.
The quarterback of the Bears, precisely, had a very complicated evening. Regularly under pressure (3 sacks), he led an attack that still shows only a few flashes. David Montgomery (15 carries, 122 yards) was the main leader of the squad, but half of those yards were won in the last quarter, when there was not much hope.
Despite a balanced record, Chicago still seems too weak offensively to see far. Conversely, the Packers have found a lot of grounds for hope.
