After the Bears resourceful win over Green Bay Monday many Packers fans were digging in to the excuse bag. The Bears didn't win the game, the bumbling, fumbling Pack gave the game away. Bumble and fumble? They did. Give the game away? Not a chance.
Green Bay committed 18 penalties, including a holding call that took a touchdown off the board and negated interceptions with a pass interference call and a roughing the passer penalty. They also turned the ball over twice, dropped an interception and wasted a time out on a bad challenge late in the fourth quarter. Clearly not a clean performance, but a lot of the Packers mistakes were a result of Chicago's aggressive play. Six of the Packers penalties committed by their offensive line came against the lineman lined up against Bears end Julius Peppers. Peppers routinely whipped and intimidated tackles Mark Tauscher and Chad Clifton. The two wiped out interceptions were the clear result of rules infractions by Green Bay. The first throw was influenced short by a vicious helmet to helmet hit by linebacker Frank Zombo on Bears quarterback Jay Cutler. On the second Packers safety Morgan Burnett prevented Bears receiver Earl Bennett from being able to work his way back to an under thrown pass, leaving the intercepting Nick Collins uncontested. Burnett did a nice job of turning his head to the throw, but was running through Bennett and not playing the ball. Don't believe me? Ask the three officials that threw flags on the play. The only real self inflicted wounds were Collins inexplicable slamming of Bears running back Matt Forte to the ground after the whistle had blown resulting in an unnecessary roughness penalty and Packers coach Mike McCarthy challenging a clear fumble recovery by Bears cornerback Tim Jennings costing the Packers a valuable second half time out.
As far as the two turnovers go, both were forced by the big paw of Bears star linebacker Brian Urlacher. Speaking of plays made by the Bears, did they not block a field goal? And did they not produce three long kick returns, including one for a touchdown? And did Cutler not throw a touchdown to tight end Greg Olson? And did Johnny Knox not have 94 yards receiving? Or were those more Packers making more mistakes? A lot was made of Green Bay's total yardage advantage of 379 to 276, but you have remember that one of the Bears offensive possessions was Devin Hester's 62 yard lighting bolt to the house. The Bears held their own with Green Bay on offense and defense and took the game on special teams.
Let's not forget the sloppy Packers didn't have the market cornered on mistakes either. So for fun we'll play "Packer logic" and blame mistakes. Since the Bears missed a field goal, threw an interception in the red zone, dropped an interception, committed a roughing the passer penalty on a Packers touchdown drive, failed to score on fourth and goal from the half yard line, followed up Jennings fumble recovery with a crucial holding call on center Olin Kreutz and wasted a second half time out and final challenge on Lovie Smith's ill advised challenge of a phantom touchdown pass to Bennett, then the Packers should consider themselves lucky the Bears let them stay with in three scores.
In my preview of this game I said both teams were trying to make a statement. The Bears wanted to show they could beat good teams and the Packers wanted to show the Bears who was in charge. Well the Bears showed at least for now they intend on being a factor and as far as the Packers go, is it really surprising how they lost? To a certain extent the Packers are who we thought they were, a penalty plagued unit with a shoddy offensive line. So if you want to crown their ass, then crown their ass, but we will never forget the way the Bears thrilled the nation with their five wide, no backs formation.
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