Packers Beat the Bears

Any Packers win against the Bears is sweet.

Just three games into the season, David Haugh declares that Bears head coach Lovie Smith and the team are suffering from an identity crisis.

From the Chicago Tribune:

In the Bears locker room after the Packers' 27-17 victory Sunday, an animated Jay Cutler waved his hand and shook his head as he saw the large media mob surrounding Roy Williams.

Williams dropped a sure touchdown pass and didn't catch any of the four balls thrown his way. So I get why Cutler might scoff and wonder why a guy who had such little impact commanded so much attention.

It was a day to question everybody's emphasis and intentions at Soldier Field — starting with coach Lovie Smith.

Now 1-2 with two unbeaten teams ahead of the Bears in the NFC North, Smith must reassert his authority at Halas Hall, and this time he needs to do more than pay lip service. You cannot vow to do one thing and let another happen days later without losing more than a game.

After Smith publicly promised to re-emphasize the running game, the Bears called 43 pass plays and nine runs. That's partly due to his offensive line's ineptness, offensive coordinator Mike Martz's stubbornness and the Packers' front seven. But it's all on Smith, whose history says he wins with teams that run the ball, create turnovers on defense and score on special teams.

Three games into 2011, the Bears look nothing like one of those teams. They don't appear to know who they are or, worse, what they want to be.

"It's not like all is lost today,'' Smith said.

No, but you had to wonder if doubt has begun to creep into the heads of players after another abysmal offensive effort. Asked if changing plays at the line accounted for the heavy pass-to-run ratio, Cutler answered in a way that indicated the frustration building.

"I don't audible, so no,'' Cutler said. "You're going to have to ask someone else about that. I don't do the game plan.''

Martz does, though the Bears have little to lose by going in another direction if the questions keep mounting. Whose idea was it to waste a down by using the Wildcat formation that resulted in a penalty and killed momentum? What is Williams doing on the roster if he's not going to be on the field during three straight snaps on first-and-goal from the 7? Is there any good reason Matt Forte has only 35 carries in three games?

In only one other game in franchise history have the Bears produced fewer than Sunday's 13 net rushing yards. I asked Forte about the conundrum of the week: Which contributed more to the futility, the Bears being unable to run the ball or unwilling to try?

"We didn't run the ball because we weren't able to," said Forte, whose nine carries netted 2 yards — 8 inches per carry. "We just played bad."

Here's the worst part: The offensive line could have exceeded low expectations, Martz could have shown better balance than an Olympic gymnast and Cutler could have been more accurate than Tom Skilling. None of it would have mattered unless the Bears stop teams on defense and scare people in the return game the way they have stopped doing.

It's so good not to be a Bears fan. I almost feel sorry for them. Almost.

The reigning Super Bowl Champion Packers didn't play a perfect game. There were some mistakes and poor decisions, but they won.

Vic Ketchman writes:

Brian Urlacher expressed the belief in the offseason that the Bears are a better team than the Packers, which is what a team-leader type of player should do. It would be a difficult opinion to support, however, following the Packers’ 27-17 win at Soldier Field on Sunday.

“That probably lingers a little bit, but they would never say we’re the better team. We know we’re the better team and it really doesn’t matter what anybody outside this locker room thinks,” Packers wide receiver Greg Jennings said.

The Packers are the better team for several reasons. Here are two: The Packers have Aaron Rodgers throwing the ball and Greg Jennings catching it.

It was that pitch-and-catch combination that dominated the early action and left the Bears trailing the Packers 7-0, before four minutes of the game had been played.

...Simply put, the Packers won a football game on Sunday that wasn’t nearly as close as its final score would suggest. The Packers doubled up the Bears in first downs, 24-12. They gained more yards; outrushed the Bears 100-13, and nothing digs deeper at the Bears than being outrushed. Ask Offensive Coordinator Mike Martz about how that’ll sit with Bears fans.

Here’s the stat of all stats: The Packers held the ball 15 minutes longer than the Bears did. That’s dominance.

So, three games into a season in which the Packers are attempting to defend their Super Bowl championship, they are playing at a level higher than at which they were playing at this time a year ago, and they are showing signs of heading to an elite level to which only a handful of teams in the league can aspire.

Without question, the Packers are playing at a higher level than they were at this time a year ago. 3-0.

They have confidence.

I think it's going to be a fun season.