Bears need to break Packers ‘hex' over Jay Cutler

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The Bears have beaten some good teams this year. The only thing that matters now, however, is if they can beat one more.

They defeated the Indianapolis Colts on opening day. The win might be minimized because it was Andrew Lucks first NFL game, but Luck put away the Minnesota Vikings the following week and the Green Bay Packers two games later.

They went into Dallas and beat the Cowboys who were 2-1 at the time and are now at 7-6 and in the playoff discussion.

But the Packers are another matter altogether and the overarching question right now is whether the Packers are too deep inside the head of quarterback Jay Cutler to be overcome.

Green Bay has beaten the Bears five straight times, all but game 16 last season with Cutler. The only time he has been able to defeat Green Bay was when the Packers helped with 18 penalties and 152 yards of walk-offs in game three of the 2010 season.

The five-game winless streak is the longest by Green Bay since Brett Favre won the last seven over the Dick Jauron Bears and the last 10 of the Dave Wannstedt era. Lovie Smith has yet to figure out Aaron Rodgers the way he had Favre.

If Smith has had any difficulty getting his team properly focused the past several weeks, that had better not be an issue this time.

If you need a game coming up to really get you motivated to play your best football, Smith said, it should be your rival, with Green Bay coming in.

The problem is that Smiths quarterback has been a model of some consistency against the Packers and its been the wrong kind of consistent.

Cutler has thrown 15 interceptions vs. eight touchdown passes in his seven Chicago-Green Bay games. Where he had a 98.8 career passer rating vs. Minnesota before last Sunday, with a 16-7 TD-INT ratio, Cutler has a 60.5 career rating vs. Green Bay. He threw four interceptions in the game-two loss at Green Bay (28.2 rating), put up ratings of 31.8, 42.5 and 82.5 in the 2010 meetings and 78.9 in his one game against the Packers last season.

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