Packers Earn Bye with Convincing, but Imperfect, Win Against the Bears

D-Train, Photo by Mike Di Sisti, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Beating your oldest rival in the league, on the last week of the season, to lock up the number one seed and get a bye week, is not a bad way to finish out the regular season!  That is exactly what the Packers did last Sunday, at Soldier Field, beating the Bears, 35-16.  The Packers also did what they could to knock the Bears out of the playoffs, but when the Rams beat the Cardinals, the Bears backed into the playoffs anyway as a Wild Card.  

More records were set or tied on Sunday.  Aaron Rodgers finished with 48 TD passes, to beat his old team record of 46.  Davante Adams broke the Packers' record for catches in a season, and tied the team record for receiving TDs at 18.  Both records had been held by Sterling Sharpe.  And Adams beat those records while missing 2.5 games this year.  If you don't remember how good Sterling Sharpe was, take a look at some of his highlights on YouTube.  

My daughter reminded me this week that when Shannon Sharpe went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he self-effacingly said the following:

"My big brother, Sterling, I’m the only player of 267 men that’s walked through this building to my left that can honestly say this: I’m the only pro football player that’s in the Hall of Fame, and the second best player in my own family."

And the thing is, it was a charming thing to say, but I think it is also true.  That's how good Sterling Sharpe was.  So for Davante Adams to break one record and tie the other just shows what a dominant player he has become for the Packers.  Oh, and then there are the silly records.  The Packers became only the fourth team in NFL history to finish the season with more touchdown passes than punts in a single season.  And the Packers had more touchdown passes than field goal attempts in 2020.

The Packers' win was convincing, but still very imperfect.  As good as the Packers' offense was, after catching a 72 yard touchdown pass from Rodgers in the first half, Marquez Valdes-Scantling dropped what should have been another long bomb for a TD at the start of the second half.  Big deal, they still won by 19?  Sure, but the drop led to a punt, and it seemed as if the offense went into a funk for most of the third quarter.  Drop that pass against the Buccaneers or the Saints, and the result might not be the same.  

And then there was the continuing game of Russian Roulette known as the Packers special teams.  The misadventure this week was newcomer Tavon Austin's fumble of a punt, resulting in a Bears recovery deep in Green Bay territory.  The defense, as it did all day except for the first drive, stiffened and held the Bears to a field goal.  So it could have been worse.  But this is the kind of mistake that can kill in the playoffs.

Anyway, the important thing is that the Packers have locked up the home field advantage for any games they play, and the bye week to get a bit healthier before their first playoff game.  The last time they had the number one seed was the 2011 season, when unfortunately they got knocked out in the divisional round by the pesky New York Giants.  Meanwhile, the Packers have played in 4 NFC Championship Games with Rodgers at QB, but they have all been on the road.  They beat the Bears, at Soldier Field, following the 2010 season, and went on to win Super Bowl XLV.  But they lost the other three NFC Championship Games in which they played, at Seattle following the 2014 season, at Atlanta following the 2016 season, and at San Francisco following the 2019 season.  It is high time that the Packers host, and win, an NFC Championship Game at Lambeau Field.  And this might be the year they do just that.  

Unlike last year, when going into the playoffs nobody could figure out how the Packers were going to beat the 49ers, if they met up in the Championship Game, there is no team in the NFC about which I have the same feeling this year.  True, the Buccaneers look like a bad matchup for the Packers, especially bearing in mind how the Buccaneers kicked the Packers around in October, but the Bucs are a Wild Card team, and would have to survive two road games even to get to Green Bay.  

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.  Let's watch some football this weekend, with no pressure since the Packers will be home watching the games along with us.  There will be plenty of time to worry about next week's game once we find out who the opponents will be.

Pivotal Bears-Packers Game

Picture by NBC Sports

Bears-Packers Week is always special for me.  It reminds me of the very first Packers game I ever attended, against the Bears, in 1962 (the Packers won, 49-0).  I think of the intensity of the rivalry, and the iconic players and coaches who participated in it (Nitschke, Butkus, Ditka, Gregg, Halas, Lombardi, Payton and others too numerous to mention).  I think of the memorable games - the Monsoon Bowl on a Halloween night, the game after Walter Payton's death, decided on a blocked field goal, the NFC Championship game after the 2010 season, and, of course, the Instant Replay Game.

Twenty-five years ago this week, during what I call the "Majic Man Season," we were in the stands for the Instant Replay game.  Our seats were (at the time) in the end zone, the end zone on the other side of the field from the decisive play.  The Packers trailed, 13-7, in the final minutes of the game, until on 4th and goal from the 14 yard line, Don Majkowski threw what looked like the game-winning touchdown pass to Sterling Sharpe.  Except there was a flag - illegal forward pass - Don Majkowski was over the line of scrimmage when he released the ball.  (The rule has since been changed, but at that time only the point where the ball was released mattered.)  Majkowski's body could have been over the line, but if the ball left his hand behind the line, the pass was a good one.  The replay official called for a review, which lasted forever.  There were no massive, crystal-clear replay boards in the stadium at the time.  But we had a portable TV with us, and we watched it over and over on the tiny screen.  Even the Bears fan next to us concluded that it was a touchdown, and after a four minute review, so did the replay official.  The Packers went 10-6 that year, and missed the playoffs on a tiebreaker, but it was still a pivotal and important game for the Packers and their fans.

This week's game is pivotal, too, for essentially the opposite reason.  If the Packers win this game, they will be 6-3 and in reasonable good shape, while the Bears will be 3-6, and even more in disarray than they are already.  If the Bears win, suddenly they will be back closer to the top in the division at 4-5, just a game behind the Packers at 5-4.  Under this scenario, maybe the Lions will end up running away with the division (or not, time will tell).  But in either case, this is an important game.

Both the Packers and the Bears had a bye last week, so they will be well rested.  The Packers should have both Morgan Burnett and Sam Shields back, and apparently Rodgers is just fine with his hamstring injury, but both T.J. Lang and Josh Sitton are questionable.

What can we learn from the Packers' loss to the Saints two weeks ago (44-23) and from the Bears' loss to the Patriots the same day (51-23)?  The Packers were in the Saints game, and in fact poised to take the lead in the third quarter, when disaster struck as Rodgers tweaked his hamstring.  His reduced mobility led to an uncharacteristic interception on that same drive, and another one later in the game.  While the Packers did score one more touchdown in the game, Rodgers was not himself for the rest of the game, and that, combined with the Packers' inability to stop the run or the pass against the Saints, turned the game into a blowout.  This week, the return of Burnett and Shields should help on defense, but I wonder how much the possible loss of starting guards Lang and Sitton will hurt the Packers by allowing more pressure on Rodgers and less effectiveness in the running game.  In the Saints game, the Packers made great use of Eddie Lacy in the passing game (8 catches for 123 yards), and it would be nice to see Rodgers get enough protection to allow that trend to continue.

The Bears were blown out by an even greater margin by Tom Brady and the Patriots two weeks ago.  That game was never close, despite decent efforts by Jay Cutler, Matt Forte, and Martellus Bennett.  But while the Bears had some success on offense, their defense was completely outmatched by the Patriots' offense.  The Bears had some injuries on defense, and they are healthier now, but it is no accident that the Bears have given up more points than anyone in the division.  Their defense just isn't as good as we traditionally expect of the Bears.  The Packers beat the Bears handily on the road 6 weeks ago, and I expect them to do the same Sunday night at home.

To help get you ready for the game, here are a few interesting/amusing things to watch and read.  More coverage of the Instant Replay Game.  A video of the decisive play in that game.  And a collection of Jay Cutler interceptions thrown to the Packers.  Go Pack Go!

Packers / Cowboys Thanksgiving 1994

This afternoon, I flipped over to the NFL Network to see what was on, and what do you know, it was the replay of the Thanksgiving day game from 1994, Packers at Cowboys (a/k/a the "Jason Garrett game"). I turned it on late, so I missed the Packers' first touchdown (a Sterling Sharpe touchdown reception), but caught the rest of the game, which I have not seen in a long time.

It was odd watching the game. Well into the third quarter, the Packers seemed in control of the game. And yet I was almost positive that the Packers would lose the game, because of my awareness of the Packers' record at Dallas during the Favre era, and because of the very fact that I remember this game as the "Jason Garrett game." It was an early manifestation of a troubling problem the Packers had over the years, where a star player of the other team would be out with injuries, and the Packers would make the backup look like a Hall-of-Famer (in this case, Troy Aikman was out, and Jason Garrett played at quarterback for the Cowboys). I later started calling this the Brad Hoover Syndrome.

Anyway, a couple of other observations from this 15-year-old game:

• I was reminded what a stud Sterling Sharpe was. Even though the Packers lost, Sharpe was just killing the Cowboys, catching four touchdowns in the game. 1994 was his last year as a player before retiring due to his congenital neck problem. Imagine if he had been able to play for another 5 or 10 years, which would not be unusual for a wide receiver. Is there any doubt that the Packers would have won more than one Super Bowl in that period?
• The broadcasters were, of course, John Madden and Pat Summerall. My mental impression was that Summerall had deteriorated as a broadcaster in the last few years before he retired, for the first time, after the 2001 season. But boy, he was pretty bad already in this game in 1994. Misidentifying players, saying inane things, mostly just piping in with something like "yes, it is" with his big broadcaster voice after Madden would make some mildly interesting comment.

Anyway, I am hoping for a better result tomorrow (but not expecting it).

4-0!

SAN FRANCISCO — A quarter of the new season has gone by, and the Packers, to my amazement, are 4-0. Ignoring the pre-season, the Packers have won 8 games in a row. And they are playing (this year) without Ahman Green. In fact, you could go farther and say that they have no running game at all. Plus, they have had a rookie (James Jones) starting at wide receiver opposite Donald Driver most of the year, and they are still the youngest team in the league.

Would any of us have given the Packers a chance to be 4-0 before the season started, with a 3-0 record in the conference? Particularly if you consider that they have played 3 playoff teams from last year, with a 4th coming up on Sunday night? I certainly would not have done so. A record of 2-2 at this point would have been considered a moral victory. I would have expected this to be a rebuilding year of sorts, with the best case scenario being that they get the offense together fast enough to win a bunch of games late in the year and maybe sneak into the playoffs.

A few observations about specific players. At the end of last season, one of the articles I intended to write, but never got around to, was an analysis of how the kicking game may have cost the Packers a slot in the playoffs. All year long, my wife complained about Dave Rayner, and as time went on, I had to agree with her. He certainly played a significant role in losing several games, and if those games had gone the other way, the Packers would have made the playoffs with a team that was on the roll at the end of the year. Not in the sense of missing a game-winning field goal at the end of the game - that did not happen. But missed field goals at key points in games helped to put or keep the Packers behind in games they might have won if they had picked up extra field goals here and there. So how delightful it was to see this kid Mason Crosby start out the year strong, including not only a game-winning kick in the first game, but consistently deep kickoffs. And while we are discussing the kicking game, it is only fair to give a tip of the hat to the holder, Jon Ryan, who made that first game-winning kick possible by grabbing a high snap out of the air and getting it down in time for Crosby's kick.

Rookie receiver James Jones has impressed me. One of the TV announcers compared him to Sterling Sharpe, and as soon as he said it, I realized that he was right. Jones has a style reminiscent of Sterling Sharpe, and we all know how valuable a Sharpe-like receiver can be in a Favre-led offense. Now that Jennings has started to play again, it is not clear exactly how much playing time Jones will get. But the way he has played, he certainly deserves to get some chances.

The grizzled veteran, Brett Favre, seems to be playing better than he has in years. He continues to make throws and take chances, as he always has. But he seems to be using better judgment as to which chances are worth taking. Perhaps he realizes how precarious the offense is right now, without a running game, and realizes that even though the passing game (and the defense) will have to carry the team for now, it is Favre's responsibility to not make the kind of mistakes that can kill a game. It was great to see him break a number of all-time records in the first quarter of the season, and get that behind him, so he can concentrate on winning games. Did anyone else notice that Favre's last TD pass, on Sunday, to James Jones, looked eerily similar to that very first Favre TD pass in 1992 to the trivia-question answer, Kitrick Taylor? I did not realize until I looked it up that that pass was the ONLY TD pass Favre ever threw to Kitrick Taylor, but indeed it was. He may not have had a great career in the NFL, but he was there at the beginning of the legend.

Meanwhile, the defense has been doing more than its share of the hard work. Nick Barnett leads the team in tackles, while KGB leads the team in sacks. Both are near the top of the stat charts in these categories for the entire league. As Favre continues to break records almost every week, KGB will soon set the record for sacks as a Green Bay Packer, by passing Reggie White's record. (Obviously, most of Reggie's career sacks were registered while he was an Eagle, and KGB has a long way to go to approach Reggie's 198 sacks, or Bruce Smith's 200.)

And now the Bears come to town. Sure, the Bears went to the Super Bowl last year. But they were exposed as pretenders in that game. And they certainly have not improved since then. The Packers could find themselves guilty of over-confidence this week. And the Bears could rise to the occasion in an attempt to resurrect their season. But I doubt it. Mike McCarthy will have the team ready, and the Packers will roll.

Falcons Review / 49ers Preview

My 2009 Update

Another old post from the Packfans listserv.

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Here are my random thoughts leading up to the big game this week.

I was really encouraged by the Falcons game. I see a BIG improvement from the last 2 years' 1st round games. In 1993, it took that great last-minute TD to Sharpe (not to mention Teague's int return for TD) to win the game. In 1994, despite holding B. Sanders to -1 yards, didn't it take
a defensive stand or a Packer interception to preserve the 16-12 victory? I haven't re-watched the tape, but that is the way I remember it. The point is it was a squeaker of a victory, at home, against what I regarded at the time as a lesser opponent.

Compared to that, how great is it to cruise to a 37-20 victory over a lesser but explosive opponent, where the outcome was really never in doubt from the time the score was 14-7 on? Plus the Packers went 11-5 and with a little better luck could have been 13-3. So I think we have a team here that has made legitimate, verifiable improvement over the last couple of seasons.

Now comes the hard part. As some people have said, that is all fine and dandy, and it does mean something, just not a hell of a lot, if they lose the next game, like they did the past 2 years.

So now they play the defending world champions, at SF, and have Young, Rice et al to contend with. What are their chances? I am realistic enough to believe that the chances are that the Packers will lose. But I am enough of an optimist to believe that they have a very good chance to win the game. As I see it, the offenses are about even. The Packers have the better QB right now, the 49ers have the better lead receiver, the Packers have the better running game and tight end, and the 49ers might have the better O-Line now in Taylor's absence. I am afraid, though, that the 49ers have a significantly better defense, certainly without a healthy Reggie, and maybe even if he was healthy. So it seems to me that the way that the Packers can win the
game is either (1) if the special teams make up the difference; or (2) if the defenders play over their heads.

The last time the Packers came to San Francisco was in the Majik Man year of 1989. My wife and I went to that game. I remember nothing about the build up for the game (was I as
excited and nervous as I am this year?). Or the aftermath (what was it like in the days after the game? was I jubilant or reserved?) I do remember bits and pieces of the game (I did not tape games in those days - too superstitious). My most clear recollection is of the 49ers' final drive. It looked, very frankly, like a perfect set-up for another Montana-led TD drive to win the game. But when his 4th down pass fell incomplete, the crowd was silent, in a very eerie way that I cannot recall ever experiencing before. Here my team had just pulled off a stunning upset,
and the stadium was silent. There were plenty of Packer fans at the game, but not enough to cut through that silence. I am hoping to hear that same sound again on Saturday.

My kids and I managed to get 3 tickets to the game. Our first playoff game for any of us. Unfortunately my wife can't go - she has a commitment (for her own business) on Saturday morning. She will have plenty of time to get home to watch the game, but if she tried to fight traffic to get to the game, she would probably miss the first quarter. So she will be watching by herself.

I so badly want the Packers to win this game. Yes, I felt the same way the last 2 years before the Dallas games, but this year the feeling is more intense, because I think the Packers are closer to being ready to take that step; because I feel that the 49ers are more vulnerable now than the Cowboys were in the past; and because I have to live here after the game. The 49er fans, for the most part, are quite arrogant about this game and about football in general. The Packers are at least appreciated now as a potentially worthy opponent, but they still are seen basically as a speed bump on the way to the Super Bowl. Or as a radio sports host said Tuesday, "Look. The 49ers and the Cowboys will be in the NFC Championship game, and if you say anything else, you are just making conversation." As a Packer fan, it is hard for me to relate to this attitude. The 49ers lost to Carolina, Atlanta and New Orleans this year. Why would the fans assume that this game is a lock? Their answer is, the 49ers are a different team in the playoffs. We shall see.

I just can't wait for game time. If they pull it off, I'll be there. And if not, I hope they put forth a good effort. As I have gotten older, I have realized that in football, more so than in real life, you only get so many of these chances, and you have to take advantage of them. The Packers have not won a lot of big games, when everything was on the line. This is their best chance to date. I wish that Taylor had not been injured, I wish Reggie were healthy. I wish Paup and Sharpe were still with the team. But this is the chance for these guys to step forward and maybe be the next Super Bowl winner, and I hope they take advantage of it.

So far, I have not been the subject of very much abuse about the game. Maybe that means that some of the 49er fans are a little nervous about this game, too. I am sure that things will become more intense from here on out.