Pretty scary when you think of how AR is going to feast on the D now. A bad situation got worse :-(
If the Bears could somehow have a good running game on O, eating the clock, scoring ~30 point, and keeping AR on the sideline longer - maybe the Bears could pull off a crazy upset. The D would have to have a few stops. But honestly it sounds like a disaster for the Bears on Sunday.
The thing I've ALWAYs hated about Green Bay is they've been a finesse team. On offense: The running game was two yards and a cloud of dust. Great pass blocking but all the pressure was always on Rodgers to play sand lot football. I think the new GM and coach are trying to change that. This team is showing signs on both sides of the ball of becoming physical (they kicked the hell out of the Titans on both sides of the ball) but they aren't consistently there yet... The team that beats Green Bay will accomplish two things: 1. Run the ball effectively against them 2. Put pressure on Rodgers. If you blitz Rodgers and he picks it up and you don't have good cornerback play it's over. You either have to effectively blitz him or get coverage sacks on him. See either San Francisco game last season or the Tampa game this season as an example. I told you guys back in September that if he's playing to empty stadiums he's going to have an MVP type season. Having crowd noise makes it so much easier to get jumps.
The team that out "physicals" them will beat them.
My biggest worry isn't so much the Packers but the obvious bias the NFL has for them.
Remember this was called offsides:
I just saw this on the Saints forum and thought of you motm: "The Bears ALWAYS complain about the refs. Imo it's a coping mechanism in regards to dealing with their inadequacies as a team. Every single time we beat them. It's the refs fault. Never because the better team won. To quote Shannon Sharpe: "Repetitions of a lie, doesn't make it true." Have we got some breaks? Absolutely. I'll be the first to admit that, but then again just about every team has gotten lucky breaks you guys included. Let's be fair. To blame the refs for every time a team is defeated by a particular team is asinine."
How do you guys think the Bears will line up defensively tomorrow? IE heavy nickle? Base defense and play it both ways? Or go heavy to stop the run?
I would play to stop the run, but that won't work unless we tackle better. That means hit and wrap up. The Packers RBs are both capable of breaking tackles and turning a 3-yd. gain into a 6-8 yd. gain. The other thing is try to double Adams as much as possible.
If Quinn can't get a pass rush on Rodgers in the first couple series, I would play Mingo on the left side and Mack on the right to get our best match ups at the corners. And if none of that works, blitz Smith. One way or the other, we must get some pressure on AR. I was looking at the film of the Adams TD in our last game with them, and Pagano had only 3 Bears rushing and Quinn dropping back on Adams. If Rodgers can stand back there and have Adams run around for 5 seconds, we have no chance.