Maybe we all overthought this game. The Green Bay Packers had a pretty awful start to their season, and the Chicago Bears were winning with backup quarterbacks in Tyson Bagent and Case Keenum. Still, the Packers’ dominant win over their rivals isn’t as surprising in retrospect.
While widely unheralded, Packers’ fans and coaches knew that Christian Watson and Matthew Golden’s speed could be a threat for most NFL defenses. If Jordan Love could be given time to throw deep, the Packers’ top 2 receivers could wreak havoc on their opponents.
Through the first 4 weeks, apart from some desperation throws, Love did not have time to make those completions. With new additions to the Packers offensive line and facing a defense with limited talent, the deep passing game opened up.
Passing off the charts
The Packers’ dominant win began with a 42 yard touchdown to Christian Watson. It would be his first, and shortest touchdown of the day. Below is Love’s passing chart from Sunday’s game. Watson’s first touchdown is the blue line landing near the sideline, the second Watson touchdown literally goes off the chart.
The two touchdown passes to Watson were 2 of Love’s 3 passes completed for 40+ yards. He now leads the league in passing plays of more than 40 yards, 2 plays ahead of Patrick Mahomes, 7 ahead of Joe Burrow.
At the end of the game, Love finished the game with 367 passing yards, 252 of those being air yards. His passing total set the record for the most yards thrown by a Packers quarterback at home against the Bears. Love set a new high in the lengthy history of Packers’ dominant wins in the oldest rivalry in football.
Second half heroics
Despite picking off Bagent once and holding the Bears to a single scoring drive, the Packers obviously weren’t comfortable with a 1 score lead when they received the ball in the second half.
The first play was a 31 yard completion to Watson. The second was a run for negative yards, the third was an incompletion in the endzone, and UDFA J. Michael Sturdivant’s first NFL touchdown was called back by a facemask penalty.
What did Jordan Love do on 3rd and 22 from his own 47 yard line?
He fired a missile into the heart of the Bears defense. Love threw a moonshot that landed just short of the goal post, Christian Watson “Mossed” the Bears first round rookie safety, Dillon Thieneman, and the Packers were up 14 points seconds later.
After a loss on first down, the Packers started 3 plays more than 10 yards from the line to gain. All 3 throws ended up in the endzone. That is Matt LaFleur and Jordan Love throwing every ounce of disrespect given by the Bears since January right back at them.
The Packers added 10 more points to the scoreboard before the time hit zero; the Bears were scoreless in the second half. The home crowd chanted “Bears still suck” as they left the stadium after the Packers’ dominant win.
Last week I wrote that without further evidence, the Packers probably aren’t a good team. Beating the defending division champions by 24 points is good evidence that the Packers have much more to offer this season.
This game has a lot of similarities to the Packers victory over the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving back in 2023. In both games, the future of the Packers was in question, the opponent was on a roll going back to the end of last season, and Ben Johnson was on the opposing sideline.
Johnson said before the season that he wanted “Blowouts” from the Bears this year. Matt LaFleur and the Packers were happy to deliver one last Sunday.
