On Sunday night, the Chicago Bears will head to Lambeau Field to take on the Green Bay Packers with thoughts of playing spoiler. At 4-8, Chicago is still technically in the hunt in the NFC, but those dreams are fading fast. Green Bay is coming off a bye week at 9-3, hoping to chase down the top seed in the conference.
Here are four things the Bears do well that the Packers have to watch out for.
Sack the quarterback
Even with Khalil Mack out for the rest of the season, the Bears rank third in the NFL in sacks per game with 2.8. Overall, the numbers have been inconsistent without Mack, but Chicago has been a problem for opposing offensive lines when they’re on.
The Bears racked up four and six sacks in back-to-back weeks against the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens, respectively. However, they’ve only recorded one in the last two games against the Arizona Cardinals and Detroit Lions.
The Bears were able to get to Aaron Rodgers three times the first time around against Green Bay this year. Mack had one of those sacks. If Chicago wants to hang around in this one, making life difficult for Rodgers in the pocket has to be a focal point for their defense.
Even without Mack, Chicago has to hit home. The heavy weight of that burden will be put on the shoulders of Robert Quinn and Roquan Smith.
Running the ball
While neither Andy Dalton nor Justin Fields has been overly consistent at quarterback this year, the Bears have been able to rely on a stout run game. The lead dog is David Montgomery. But even when he missed time this year with an injury, Khalil Herbert filled in admirably and put together four consecutive games of 75, 97, 100, and 72 yards, respectively.
The run game has alleviated the pressure created by Chicago’s struggles to make consistent plays down the field in the air attack. As a result, the running game ranks eighth in the NFL in rushing yards per game.
Montgomery and Herbert aren’t superstar running backs, but they’ve proved to be damn good this year for Chicago — even in predictable spots for the offense. Herbert had 19 carries for 97 yards and a touchdown in the first matchup, and all signs point towards Montgomery getting a heavy workload in the rematch this Sunday.
Pass defense
On the other side of the ball, Chicago has quietly pieced together numerous performances this year in which they have limited their opponents’ passing game. Entering their game Sunday against the Packers, they rank sixth in the NFL in opponent passing yards per game, giving up just 207 per pop.
Last week, Kyler Murray had only 123 yards passing, but that was due to one big reason. Andy Dalton had four interceptions, and the Cardinals returned all four inside the Chicago 30-yard line. Short fields were the name of the game.
Outside of that, they’ve held quarterbacks like Ben Roethlisberger to 205 yards, Derek Carr to 206, and Joe Burrow to 207 yards. Even Rodgers had only 195 yards in the first matchup against Chicago, although it was still an efficient outing for the superstar quarterback.
It hasn’t always been pretty for the Bears. They have continued to find different ways to lose games, but the pass defense has stood tall against some outstanding quarterbacks this year.
Roll the dice on fourth downs
Chicago is tied for ninth in the NFL in fourth-downs attempted this season. Many of those attempts have come in places of necessity where they need to go for it late, but others have come in circumstances where they could just as easily balk at the idea.
While Matt Nagy’s seat is scorching hot at the moment, and it’s almost impossible to see him keeping his job past this year, he has shown the stones to trust his offense and go for it. While the results have been mixed (50% conversion rate), at least he’s opted to stay aggressive.
If they want to keep up with the Packers, the Bears will have to maintain that aggressive mindset on offense. Rolling the dice beats waving the white flag. Suppose the Bears can convert on some of these major swing plays, who knows what could happen. They’re approaching these games— or should be — with a nothing-to-lose mentality. Often those are the most dangerous teams to play. Now isn’t the time to bottle things up and get conservative.
