Bears Lay An Egg in the Season Finale

The oldest rivalry in the NFL was recently renewed once again at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin. And like many matchups between the Packers and Bears have gone, it ended in a Packer victory, this time by a score of 17-9. This win secured Green Bay a spot in the playoffs with a record of 9-8, while for the Bears it’s a disappointing finish to a mediocre 7-10 season.

For the Packers, their offense, while not putting up as many points as in past weeks, got the job done against an improved Chicago defense. Packers’ QB Jordan Love had an outstanding performance, furthering his argument towards being Green Bay’s long term signal-caller. He went 27/32 (an 84% completion percentage!), 316 passing yards, and two touchdown passes. It was an incredibly balanced effort on offense, with their leading receiver being Jayden Reed, who caught 4 passes for 112 yards, followed by Bo Melton (5 catches, 62 yards), Dontayvion Wicks (6 catches, 61 yards, 2 touchdowns), and Tucker Kraft (3 catches, 31 yards). The leading rusher was Aaron Jones, who continued his dominance against the Bears with 22 carries for 111 yards. Defensively, Green Bay was able to sack Justin Fields five times. Overall, the Packers had 432 yards of total offense, they were 7/10 on third down, and they only allowed one sack. Pure domination on both sides of the football.

Meanwhile for the Bears, after a promising 4-1 record in their previous five games, they (yet again) failed to show up against their rivals from up north. Fields was yet again inconsistent, going 11/16, 148 passing yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions. He also ran the ball eight times for 27 yards, but the leading rusher for the Bears was Khalil Herbert, who had 12 carries for 28 yards. The leading receiver was DJ Moore, who had 4 catches for 64 yards. The other leading receiver of note was Cole Kmet, who had 3 catches for 41 yards. The Bears failed to score a touchdown in this game, with their only points coming off of 3 field goals by Cairo Santos. The defense gave up over 400 yards of offense to Green Bay. Chicago went 3/11 on third down, and punted three times. The team was flat from the opening kickoff, and it showed in the final score.

The Bears have now lost 10 consecutive games in this rivalry, with their last win coming in 2018. They haven’t won at Lambeau Field since 2015. And Chicago now heads into an offseason full of questions. Will the Bears retain head coach Matt Eberflus? Will they keep Fields? Who will they choose with the #1 overall pick? It’s a fascinating story that we’ll be monitoring for the next several months. But for now, we’ve reached the end of a tumultuous season, and we’ll have to wait and see what comes next.