Blocked field goal at the end allows Packers to escape with win over Bears

 

The  Packers continue to “own” the Bears after their 20-19 win on Sunday, but this was another game, like the win against the Texans, that they didn’t deserve. The Bears ran 25 more plays and had a 13-minute advantage on the time clock, but this was a game where the Bears didn’t do enough with their opportunities; they are just not that good enough a team not to. On all seven of their possessions they managed to enter Packer territory, but it was simply wasted. The Packers, on the other hand, blew two red zone opportunities, one on another interception thrown by Jordan Love, his eleventh of the year, already equaling last year’s number, and in the fourth quarter a 48-yard pass to Christian Watson was wasted on downs.

The Packers were simply fortunate to win this game despite their mistakes; the Bears are just not that good enough a team to overcome more than one game-changing mistake with another young quarterback, Caleb Williams, replacing Justin Fields, and frankly isn’t an improvement. They couldn’t afford a 60-yard pass from Love to Watson with under 4 minutes to play for the go-ahead score, and then allowing Karl Books to sneak in between two linemen to block the potential game-winning field goal. “Good” teams should be able to do enough to beat “bad” teams, but as we saw two weeks against the Lions, doing “just enough” against “bad” teams is not good enough against a “good” opponent.

This game should have been a loss for the Packers, but you have to take whatever “fortune” allows you. Watson had one of the best games of his career, with catches of 17, 25, 48 and 60 yards for a total of 150 yards on just 4 catches. Love threw only 17 passes the entire game but for 260 yards, and it was the long throws that moved the chains, not the running game, which managed barely 100 yards on 25 total rushes, albeit with a few at critical times to set-up touchdowns. But again, this game probably should have been in the loss column, and coming out of the bye-week did not see much improvement in the team’s efficiency, at least on offense.

Next week the Packers play at home against the 49ers, and this is simply not the same “dominant” team we have been seeing in recent years with already four losses and maybe five by the time they make it to Lambeau. Injuries on offense and a defense not as good as the Super Bowl team last year have been blamed, but they are still a “good” team, and the Packers simply cannot afford to play careless like they have been; todays win was certainly nothing to be “joyous” about, more like just “relief” that you managed to escape with yet another win “this time.”