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Green Bay sent out a warning to their rivals after the bye week as they continued their recent dominance over Chicago Bears at Lambeau Field on Monday, running out 55-14 victors over their fiercest rivals.
Green Bay have now won nine of the last 10 games against the Bears, including a 38-17 thrashing at Soldier Field in September, and Jay Cutler’s appalling regular season record against the Packers worsens to 1-10.
Cutler had thrown 13 touchdowns and a colossal 19 interceptions in the previous 10 games against his kryptonite team. But even with those statistics the Bears couldn’t have anticipated the hell Green Bay would put them through in the first half.
Pre-game, there was a lot of talk about Aaron Rodgers’ tight hamstring that he injured a fortnight ago in the loss at New Orleans, but a dominant first half, where Rodgers threw six touchdowns in seven possessions, saw Green Bay head into the locker room 42-0 up. Rodgers is only the second quarterback to fire in six touchdowns in a single half.
Rodgers got the ball rolling for Green Bay with a tough opening drive resulting in a fourth-down one-yard touchdown pass to tight end Brandon Bostick. But that was as hard as the opening half got for Rodgers and Green Bay, as they put Chicago to the sword.
Cutler started his first quarter in the worst possible way, Micah Hyde picking off a floating pass to set up Rodgers’ second, a four-yard touchdown pass to tight end Andrew Quarless.
In something of a surprise, Mike McCarthy moved Clay Matthews to the inside to counter the rushing threat of Matt Forte, and the Californian exploded around the field, epitomising how the Packers defence wanted to play. Matthews was dominant in the middle, but still did his best work coming in from the outside, principally a third-down sack on Cutler at the end of the first quarter and a huge hit on Chicago running back Williams late in the second quarter.
Chicago regularly tested Rodgers’ hamstring by flushing the former league MVP out the pocket, but Rodgers did what he does best in that situation, extending the plays and utilising the time his offensive line was allowing him to find open receivers.
On the first play of the second quarter, Rogers found Nelson on third and 11 for a 73-yard touchdown pass. That was the fourth time Rodgers and Nelson have combined for a 50-plus yard touchdown at Lambeau Field this season and was Rodgers’ 16th 70-plus yard touchdown pass of his career, an NFL record he now owns outright from Brett Favre and Peyton Manning.
After another failed drive by Chicago, Rodgers once again showed the full range of his skills on a four play, 54-yard drive. Firstly, avoiding a sack by escaping the pocket and flicking a backhand pass in the vicinity of a nearby teammate, and on the very next play by sprinting to the right side of the field and finding his favourite receiver, Jordy Nelson, for another 40-yard touchdown into the end zone.
At 28-0 with 10 minutes to go in the first half, a shell shocked Chicago defence were desperate for answers. Cutler gave them some time by finally managing to put together a drive into the Green Bay red zone. However, Cutler failed to covert on fourth and goal, Sam Shields breaking up a pass resulting in the ball being turned over on downs at the Green Bay five-yard line. Following this error by Chicago, Eddy Lacy was able to score on a simple screen pass to extend the lead to 35-0.
The 56-yard touchdown highlighted just how hapless the Bears were on defence in the first half. After Lacy’s touchdown, Rodgers spent time congratulating his offensive line, David Bakhtiari, Josh Sitton, Corey Linsley, TJ Lang and Bryan Bulaga, who were giving Rodgers so much time to create plays in the first half it looked as if he could sit down and tie up his laces before needing to look for a pass.
After the two-minute warning, Rodgers, already with five touchdowns, threw a huge pass downfield for Jordy Nelson, drawing a 53-yard pass interference penalty, although this ended up being Green Bays’ first ineffective possession of the match.
Just prior to the half, the Packers issued the ultimate insult to a despairing Chicago when former Bear Julius Peppers forced a sack fumble to regain possession for Green Bay. Rodgers rewarded the efforts of his defence by throwing 20 yards to Randall Cobb, who took a spectacular one handed grab under colossal pressure to really put the Green icing on the first half cheese cake.
At the half, Rodgers stats read 18/24, 315 yards and six touchdowns, giving him a passer rating of 156.3, while Cutler could only manage 12/23, 145 yards, zero touchdowns and one interception.
Rodgers was only risked for one drive in the second half – ending the night with 18-27, 315 yards, six touchdowns and a passer rating of 145.8 – and Green Bay struggled to get going again. Crosby slotted 20 and 52-yard field goals either side of a Brandon Marshall 45-yard touchdown as Chicago finally got on the board mid-way through the second half
Matt Flynn, earning some rare game time, was unable to get the Packers moving, resulting in a number of ineffective possessions by both sides. As both quarterbacks struggled, Casey Hayward made the most of an intercepted screen pass from Cutler to take the ball back 82 yards for the first defensive touchdown of the night, the Packers now leading 55-7.
Despite Chris Williams immediately replying for Chicago with a 101-yard touchdown kick-off return, on what was his 10th run back of the night, the game petered out in the fourth quarter, ending 55-14 to Green Bay.
Chicago, and Mark Tressman need to change something if they are to salvage anything from the season. They are only the second team ever to allow consecutive 50-plus point games against them, the last being the Rochester Jeffersons in 1929. Yep, they were that bad. Their defence looked hapless, and the offence hardly looked like they were on the same page as each other as Cutler had yet another shocker against Green Bay.
The NBC commentators made the astute proclamation that the Bears, “simply cannot be this bad in defence if they want to do anything in this league”. And they are right. Even though Chicago played so badly, Rodgers still had a standout half, and on the other side of the ball, so did defensive captain on the night, Clay Matthews.
The Packers now move to 6-3 and will look to kick on towards the playoffs, while Chicago go to 3-6. The only bright point for the Bears is that five of their last seven games are due to be played at Solider Field, and Chicago will return to Illinois hoping this was the low point of this season, and that home field advantage will result in some more promising results.
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