3 and Out: Classic Rivalry Delivers Predicable Result
Bears fail to keep momentum, drop seventh straight game to Green Bay
An endless loop.
That is what it feels like we are in when the Chicago Bears lose to the Green Bay Packers year after year. This past Sunday night it was no different, another prime time loss that saw the Bears have a little momentum at the start but fall painfully short of maintaining it afterward.
When the dust settled, the Packers stood tall again, winning 27-10 and pushing both themselves and the Bears to 1-1 records in 2022. We’ll just have to wait and see who’ll push further past .500 by the end of the season.
Falling Short
Just moments after a successful Bears’ challenge that saw Justin Fields run for a first down on a third-and-five play in the fourth quarter, the last pivotal point in the game followed.
At fourth-and-goal at the Green Bay 1-yard line the Bears offense got into shotgun formation. Fields attempted to run through the middle of the Packer defense and, according to the officials did not make it into the end zone.
With it being such a close call and there being only 8:13 left in the game, the Bears had to challenge the call. Unfortunately, after the review, the no touchdown decision stood.
Many went to social media to criticize the use of shotgun in that play but head coach Matt Eberflus stood by his team’s decision-making.
“We thought that was the best play we had at that point to score,” Eberflus said following the game on Sunday. “I like it because the coaches like it, we looked at it, we practiced it, and repped it because a lot of the times what you do is you outnumber the box.”
In the post-game press conference, Justin Fields was asked if he thought he got in and he simply replied with, “Yeah.”
Fields, who scored the game’s first touchdown with a three-yard rush in the Bears’ opening drive, wound up throwing only 11 passes on the day, which puts him at only 28 attempts through two contests, that is ranked last among starting quarterbacks that have played two complete games.
On that same note, wide receiver Darnell Mooney and tight-end Cole Kmet, who many thought would be Fields’ top two targets going into the season, have only garnered a total of two receptions on seven targets.
“Yeah, I’m going to go back and look at it. We have to go back and look at it with the offensive staff. We threw the ball 11 times, but again we ran the ball really well,” Eberflus said when asked about the lack of targets to Mooney.
Rush Hour
One might say, well if it’s not broken, don’t fix it because the Bears running game was their best weapon on Sunday night. In fact, both teams running game was on point in a good-old assertion of NFC North power football.
Montgomery had only 26 rushing yards in the season opener, but in Green Bay that changed when he nearly quadrupled that number.
And on the other side, the Packers’ Pro Bowl running back Aaron Jones ran for a game-high 132 rushing yards and a touchdown. Back-up running back AJ Dillon has played a key role in Green Bay’s offense in his first three years in the league and he showed his worth again in the defeat of the Bears, running for 61 yards.
Whereas Aaron Rodgers typically gets most the credit in beat downs of the Bears, one can say with great surety that the running game was one of the main reasons the Packers came away with the victory.
Back to the Drawing Board
Plenty went wrong for the Bears in this one. There may not be one particular thing to point at but if you had to choose, it might just be the third down conversions. Chicago failed to convert on six of the seven third-down opportunities it had.
Penalties were another aspect of the game that helped stunt the early success of the Bears.
“I think we had penalties. I think that stopped our momentum a little bit,” Fields said.
“I think the main thing with that is you just can’t shoot ourselves in the foot. We have to stay on track on first and second down and keep ourselves out of third-and-longs.”
There were also plenty of missed tackles, as Eberflus mentioned post-game.
“To me, my eyes are always drawn to the defense because of my background and I would say the tackling. We have to do a better job,” Eberflus said.
“Look at the individual and the technique and break down those ones they did tackle well and those they didn’t do well, leverage, angles, tackling, we call it cupping the ball. We have to do a better job at that.”
The Bears now look ahead to a Week 3 return to Soldier Field, a meeting that has them hosting former head coach Lovie Smith and the Houston Texans.
Saul Rodriguez is WARR Media’s associate producer and lead Bears reporter