In a rare shutout even by Bears-Packers standards, the Bears had zero sacks of and zero hits on Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. A goal was to harry Rodgers and hit him as much as possible; even though he is the NFL’s best vs. the blitz, the Bears wanted to pressure Rodgers as a mean of shortening the coverage time needed against his receivers.
Green Bay coach Mike McCarthy and staff schemed with personnel to force the Bears into more nickel defensive packages, then ran at the Bears’ right side with tailback Eddie Lacy (14 carries, 85 yards, one touchdown).
The overall, however, resulted in inadequate pressure on a good quarterback, and too often when pressure did approach Rodgers, the Bears lost contain and allowed Rodgers to run for an additional 35 yards.
“It’s up to us to get to the quarterback,” said Pernell McPhee, cast more in the role of defensive end because of the nickel situations.
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Jarvis Jenkins blocked a pass and did get some pressure in the interior, albeit without results to show for it. Willie Young got heavy work in the second quarter, had some success setting an edge vs. the run. Jared Allen struggled to get off blocks of left tackle David Bakhtiari early but forced a Bakhtiari hold with a textbook bull rush in the second quarter to negate a touchdown pass.
The Packers did have success running inside Allen and Young to the Bears’ right side. But the lack of pressure allowed Rodgers to wait for receivers to come open too often.
NFL
“(Pass rush) wasn’t good enough against that team today,” said coach John Fox. “Without watching the tape and seeing every single detail of every single player, that guy wearing No. 12 (Rodgers) is pretty good at that, as far as avoiding the rush, stepping up into the B-gap, stepping up into the rush and making things happen. We have to get better at it, just like I would say about every position on our football team.”
Moon's Grade: D