Packers defeat Bears, once more in uninspiring fashion.

Another ugly win, another underwhelming performance by the Packers both on offense and defense. True, both the Packers and the Bears were obliged to play in temperatures that were closer to zero than merely freezing, but Mitchell Trubisky still managed to throw for 349 yards compared to Aaron Rodgers’ 203 yards—49 of which came on a contested play in the third quarter. After taking a 21-3 lead in the third quarter after two nice touchdown drives, the Packers just “coasted” the rest of the game, being outgained by the Bears in the final quarter-and-half by an appalling 266 to 24. That the Bears only mustered 10 points out of that was due to red zone failures, failures to covert on fourth down, and time just running out. Trubisky threw two interceptions, but the first was a throwaway at the end of the first half, and the second was followed by another quick three-and-loss-of-yards by the Packers. 

Again, people will say a win is a win. The Packers have won 11 games compared to 13 combined the past two seasons. But the Packers just don’t seem to be playing the kind of football that inspires a lot of confidence; it just seems that their opponents for the most part are playing worse football—and that won’t likely continue against the teams they will face in the playoffs. Here was another substandard performance by Rodgers; a couple of nice throws on a couple of scoring drives sandwiched in a lot of nothing. Rodgers misfired on his last five passes on the final four offensive drives in which the Packers ran 15 plays for just 12 yards total. The defense continues to be one of league’s least-best in yards allowed; the one bright spot on the Packer side is that they are taking care of the football, which could of course be due to the kind of conservative play-calling that Matt LaFleur felt he had to do with the Titans. Although the Packers have one of the better turnover ratios in the league, they are actually far behind the Steelers, Patriots and Seahawks in total takeaways, and have about the “average” number per team.

It doesn’t look too good next week at the Vikings; Kirk Cousins’ play has much improved since the last time the Packers saw him, and Dalvin Cook has over 1100 yards rushing going into their game against the Chargers. Fortunately for the Packers, they still have a two-game edge over the Vikings in the division, so even if the Packers and Vikings are tied with the same overall record after next week’s game, the Packers will still have the edge going into the final weekend versus the Lions, which historically has not been an easy win for the Packers.