Packerlifer
Cheesehead
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2008
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I was just looking up a few things about the recent history of the Packers, Jay Cutler and the Bears in hopes it may yield some insight about what we might expect about the season opening game Sunday night. The Packers have faced Cutler once before, in the Monday nighter at Denver in 2007; which they won in overtime 19-13. Cutler's showing in that game: 21 of 39, 264 yds. 1 td, no ints. He got his team across the goal line only once and managed to generate only 13 pts. on offense. In that game his wr's were Brandon Marshall, Brandon Stokely and Javon Walker; no such like as those in Chicago. He did have a rushing dimension on his team then. Rookie Selvin Young rushed for over 700 yds. that season and had nearly a thousand yards of total offense. Travis Henry was a 691 yds. rusher. In their two games with the Bears last season the Packers outscored them 54-23 and racked up 725 yds. of total offense, including 487 passing. In his first season starting for Green Bay against their oldest rivals Aaron Rodgers was 45 of 67 with 4 td's and only 1 interception. Against the league's 5th ranked rushing defense in the first meeting at Lambeau the Packers rolled up 200 rushing yds. In the second at Soldier Field they were held to 65. Personnel-wise neither the Packers offense or the Bears defense has changed much since last year. So the match-ups are pretty much as they were last season. And the Packers clearly won on that side of the ball. On the other side the Packers' 08 defense which struggled against the run limited the Bears rushing game to 83 and 74 yds. respectively. They couldn't run on the Packers then and Green Bay didn't have Cullen Jenkins, B.J. Raji, Nick Barnett or Atari Bigby in those games, played with a dinged up Ryan Pickett and A.J. Hawk and inexperienced Desmond Bishop and Jeremy Thompson. If the Packers new 3-4 defense is successful in its first mission to stop the run Cutler is going to have to put the ball in the air at least 35-40 times. The Bears averaged 30 attempts in the two games last season. The more Cutler passes the more chances the Packers are going to have to produce sacks, pressure, hurries and knockdowns and generate turnovers, which they showed themselves to be quite proficient in during the preseason. Chicago's only real chance to win will be to use the formula they have used successfully and frequently in recent games against the Packers when they have beaten them. Turnovers, penalties, and breakdowns on special teams on either side of the ball. Those have been the differnce between the Packers being 4-2 or even 5-1 against the Bears in the last six and their current record in that span of 2-4. The Packers lost the second game in Chicgo last season even though they outgained the Bears 325-210 and had nearly an 8 minute TOP advantage. They lost it because of bad punting, yielding big returns, committing critical penalties and having a game winning field goal blocked at the end of regulation. And Green Bay's special teams are still an area of concern heading into this season while they remain a strength for the Bears. When the Packers have beaten the Bears recently they've done it by starting strong and having the game well under control by halftime. They were up 19-0 in their 2006 closing game there and 17-3 at Lambeau last season. And they haven't let the Bears up in the third quarter. They extended their lead to 24-3 in that period in last year's home game but saw a 14-3 half lead in the second cut to 14-10 in the third away, setting the stage for defeat.
