Packers’ Implosion Against Bears Sends Crushing Message

CHICAGO – When the Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Bears two weeks ago, Jordan Love was the quarterback, Micah Parsons was the havoc-creating pass rusher and Keisean Nixon was the hero.

On Saturday, Love was concussed, Parsons is on injured reserve and Nixon was the goat of goats.

Great teams find a way to win games like Saturday night’s NFC North showdown against the Bears, anyway. The Packers definitely are not a great team. And if you’re not a great team and you’re trending in the wrong direction with January on the horizon, then yet another season that started with Super Bowl dreams is headed to the trash can of franchise history.

The Bears stunned the Packers 22-16 in overtime. The Packers were guilty of so many self-inflicted wounds that they had to make a detour to the blood bank before flying back to Green Bay.

The Packers are a good team, that much is obvious. With Parsons on injured reserve, the Packers held the first-place Bears to three points through three quarters. With Love suffering a concussion midway through the second quarter, the Packers took a 13-3 late in the third quarter on Malik Willis’ 33-yard touchdown pass to Romeo Doubs.

The game should have been a runaway, with Green Bay celebrating its return to first place in the NFC North and the coveted No. 2 seed within its reach.

Instead, the Packers packered.

The offense entered the game ranked seventh in the red zone but went 0-for-5. They set an NFL record for red-zone efficiency in 2020 but this was their worst day in at least 20 seasons. There had been some 0-for-4 days, including one under coach Matt LaFleur at Detroit in 2022. The miscues included a fumble by Josh Jacobs, which resulted in him watching the rest of the game from the sideline.

“That certainly is problematic,” LaFleur said of the red-zone woes. “That’s two games in a row that we haven’t been very good down there. So, we got to look at what we’re asking our guys to do and how we can go out there and execute a little bit better.”

The Packers went minus-2 in turnovers, with Malik Willis taking the blame on the botched center-quarterback exchange on fourth down in overtime.

With the Packers leading 16-6 with 3:15 remaining, they had the Bears staring at third-and-20. Warren Brinson sacked Caleb Williams but was called for a facemask, which allowed Chicago to kick a field goal to stay in the game.

“Just bad luck,” Brinson said. “It was a football play. I’m trying to make play to help the team out, grabbed his facemask and gave up 15 yards.”

Still, really, all the Packers had to do was recover the onside kick. Receiver Romeo Doubs, who has taken the adventure out of punt returns because of his excellent hands, couldn’t corral the bouncing ball.

“Sh**, I missed it,” Doubs said. “That’s just this game, bro. I rep this shit all week and yeah, bro, somebody got to be responsible and I’m willing to take on 1,000 percent of it.”

And after all of that, the defense had the Bears staring at fourth-and-4 from the 6 with 28 seconds to go. Brenton Cox had a clear path to Williams but the secondary blew the coverage, leaving receiver Jahdae Walker wide open for the tying touchdown. Walker, a rookie, had zero catches in his career until Saturday. It wasn’t too different from last week, when the Broncos had two practice-squad receivers catch touchdowns.

Chicago Bears wide receiver Jahdae Walker catches a touchdown pass during the fourth quarter against the Green Bay Packers. | Mark Hoffman-USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images

“It was zero blitz,” LaFleur said. “So, obviously somebody let their man go.”

Nixon and Nate Hobbs were in the vicinity and had the best seats in the house to the touchdown.

“It was just miscommunication. That’s all,” Hobbs said.

The Packers still had a chance to salvage the game, but Willis was sacked on third down and fumbled the snap on fourth down.

Willis took the blame for hurrying the cadence with the play clock winding down.

“I’m going to do something like that, I just should preface it in the huddle before we get into that situation,” Willis said. “I can’t blame him for not expecting it. I can’t blame anybody. It was on me. I got to communicate better and make sure we’re all on the same page. That’s my job.”

In overtime, the Bears converted on third-and-3 before Williams threw the game-winning bomb to D.J. Moore, who got a step on Nixon. Two weeks ago, Nixon made the game-saving interception. On Saturday, he gave up the game-winning touchdown.

“Certainly, the game didn’t end the way we wanted it to,” LaFleur said in his introductory remarks. “I thought I was so proud of our guys, man, to be able to handle all the adversity and continue to battle and fight. Unfortunately, just some of those plays at the end of the game didn’t go our way.”

Actually, none of those plays went the Packers’ way.

That doesn’t happen to great teams. For the great teams, their best players make big-time plays in big-time moments. On Saturday, the Packers’ top players shrank from the moment. Moreover, great teams build upon their strengths and fix their weaknesses. Instead, the red zone has become the dead zone, with one touchdown in nine trips the last two games.

Championship teams and battle-tested teams don’t let upstarts like the Bears do what they did on Saturday.

If the Packers are going to salvage the season – they might need to beat the Ravens and Vikings to earn a playoff berth – what’s left of their playmakers must step up.

When Love returns, he has to be better than how he started against the Bears and finished against the Broncos. Jacobs, the team’s stalwart running back, can’t fumble on first-and-goal. The team’s veteran defensive backs can’t blow the coverage with the game on the line.

Micah Parsons isn’t coming through the door to save the day. With such little margin for error, the players are going to need to play better and the coaches are going to need to coach better.

Otherwise, cruises and tee times can be booked in a couple weeks.

“The great thing about this game is it’s bittersweet now,” said Rashan Gary, whose sackless streak reached eight games, “but we’ve got another opportunity to erase the taste out of our mouth this week and we have another opportunity to correct ourselves and still put ourselves where want to be at the end of the season.”

When the Packers were rolling into Denver with a four-game winning streak, LaFleur talked about how a team can get better through adversity. After another crushing loss, they’re up to their eyeballs in adversity.

“If we can regroup and gather and learn from it, then, you know, it can be a great lesson,” LaFleur said.

Or a bitter lesson to ponder during a long, cold offseason.

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