Two Days Until Kickoff: Two Packers at Bears X-Factors

Looking beyond the obvious, here are two X-factors for Sunday’s clash between the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears.

Author:
Bill Huber
Publish date:
Jan 1, 2021 10:33 PM EST

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers (12-3) will play the Chicago Bears (8-7) in a huge Week 17 showdown between these two ancient rivals. There is a lot at stake. For the Packers, a victory would get them the No. 1 seed, a first-round bye and homefield advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. For the Bears, a win would get them in the playoffs.

You know the star players. For the Packers, it’s quarterback Aaron Rodgers, receiver Davante Adams and whoever lines up in a reshuffled offensive line. For the Bears, it’s outside linebacker Khalil Mack, defensive lineman Akiem Hicks and linebacker Roquan Smith.

Looking beyond the obvious, here are two X-factors for Sunday’s clash.

Green Bay: RB Jamaal Williams

Remember Williams? The team’s No. 2 back for most of the season was inactive last week with an injured quad. Without him, rookie AJ Dillon got the first heavy workload of his career and responded with 124 rushing yards and two touchdowns. That’s more yards than Williams has had in any of his 59 career games.

With the No. 1 seed on the line, left tackle David Bakhtiari out with a knee injury and the Bears boasting a strong pass rush, Williams figures to have a key role on third down, if nothing else. Williams has had a solid season with 4.2 yards per carry and 31 catches out of 35 targets. One of his best games came in Round 1 vs. Chicago with 17 carries for 73 yards and one touchdown.

“Jamaal Williams, you love him. You can't have enough Jamaal Williams,” Rodgers said. “Although they're different body types, he reminds me a lot of John Kuhn. John's greatest attributes were his intelligence and his toughness. I would say those are two words that aptly describe Jamaal Williams. Very intelligent football player and a really tough player, as well. We're really fortunate around here to have guys who really get it in the backfield and they've both played really big roles for us.”

Chicago: DT Bilal Nichols

Hicks, the leader of the defensive line, missed last month’s matchup against Green Bay due to injury. He returned the following week. Not coincidentally, that’s when Nichols got rolling. He had a sack in three consecutive games and tallied six of his 13 quarterback hits over the last four weeks. For the season, according to Pro Football Focus, he’s got 30 quarterback hits. That’s more than Green Bay’s Kenny Clark (27) and Kingsley Keke (22).

“Pretty much my whole life has been the underdog,” Nichols, a fifth-round pick out of Delaware in 2018, said recently. “I’ve never been the highest recruited guy. Never been the guy really looked at to be that guy. And that burned me and that added a lot of fire. It just made me want to out-work everybody. I always told myself, if a guy was better than me, it was just going to be because he was more talented — not because he out-worked me. That’s kind of the mind-set I live by.”

With a jumbled offensive line and the obvious attention that will be placed on Hicks and Mack, whoever is blocking Nichols will have to do it one-on-one.

“Not real flashy. Not real sexy. Not this, that and the other,” defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano said recently. “I mean, he might tell you he’s sexy, I don’t know. A significant other might tell you that... A couple of his teammates might tell him that... He’s just a grinder. Anything you ask that kid to do, he does it.”