CHICAGO — An old NFL adage is it’s not who you play but when you play them.
That could apply to the Chicago Bears’ Week 2 matchup Sunday night at Lambeau Field against the Green Bay Packers.
The Bears appear to be catching their rivals at the right time — if there is such a thing in a series that has been lopsided for the better part of three decades during the Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers eras in Green Bay.
It would be overstating it to say the Packers are reeling after an opening 23-7 road loss to the Minnesota Vikings, but it’s probably fair to call them a little stunned.
Las Vegas oddsmakers don’t see it this way. The Packers opened as nine-point favorites and the line has moved to 10, evidence the wagering public isn’t putting a lot of stock in the Bears’ splash-filled 19-10 upset of the San Francisco 49ers to begin the Matt Eberflus era.
That’s fine with the Bears, who have maintained they’re more focused on improving than concerning themselves with outside narratives. They’re also not getting caught up in the Bears-Packers hoopla that some former coaches wrapped their arms around and squeezed. Remember, Lovie Smith took a cue from then-Chairman Michael McCaskey and talked at length about beating the Packers as a primary goal.
“The first thing Michael McCaskey went over when I came here to interview for the job was to make sure I knew about the rivalry,” Smith said after the 2010 season as the Bears prepared to meet the Packers in the NFC championship game. “He let me know a little bit about it then too. Believe me, we know exactly how we’re supposed to feel about that rivalry.”
Eberflus didn’t get the same directive, saying the rivalry didn’t come up in his interview with Chairman George McCaskey. Maybe that’s why Eberflus has steered away from any of the rivalry shtick that feeds fan bases.
The Packers have faced questions since the spring about how Rodgers, 38, would remain at the top of his game after the trade of wide receiver Davante Adams to the Las Vegas Raiders. Things didn’t go well in Minnesota as Rodgers completed 22 of 34 passes for 195 yards with an interception.
Rookie Christian Watson was behind the Vikings secondary when he dropped a deep pass that might have gone for a touchdown. The timing and rhythm that have been second nature in the Green Bay offense were clearly off.
Veteran Allen Lazard, who is expected to lead the receiving corps, missed the game with an ankle injury, the result of a freak accident in practice when a defensive lineman stepped on him. Lazard practiced Wednesday and could be in line to play this week. But can the Packers go from out of sync to humming in one week?
More concerning is the offensive line, and this is where the Bears ought to look for edges they can exploit. Left tackle David Bakhtiari and right tackle Elgton Jenkins sat out Week 1 as they recover from ACL reconstructions. They reportedly might miss at least one more week, which would mean Yosh Nijman and Royce Newman are the starting tackles.
With left guard Jon Runyan in concussion protocol, it could be a makeshift line in front of Rodgers. It’s one thing to be working on timing with young receivers such as Watson and Romeo Doubs. It’s another thing entirely not to have time to throw.
“We don’t care who is out there,” Bears free safety Eddie Jackson said. “(Missing starters) can take effect, but the mindset doesn’t change as you are preparing or when you’re out there on the field.”
Rodgers has played with plenty of patchwork lines before, even in this series, and it hasn’t seemed to slow him. The Packers have won 12 of the last 14 meetings and Rodgers has a 23-5 career record versus the Bears. He recorded a passer rating of 125 or greater in 10 of those games, the most such performances by a quarterback against a single opponent in league history.
Eberflus should warn his team that the league MVP from the last two seasons isn’t likely to struggle two weeks in a row. After all, weak-side linebacker Roquan Smith said Monday that a “pissed off” Rodgers means the Bears will get the best version of him.
“I don’t even go in that direction,” Eberflus said. “I just stay focused on us.”
The other element in play here — and maybe the one oddsmakers are relying on — is the Packers haven’t lost consecutive regular-season games since a three-game skid that began in mid-November 2018 and ended with coach Mike McCarthy’s firing.
His replacement, Matt LaFleur, has guided the Packers to three consecutive 13-win seasons — the first team in league history to do so. That’s a testament to the job general manager Brian Gutekunst and his staff have done building the roster around Rodgers. If all it took was an elite passer, surely some other team would have reached that pinnacle previously.
One more factor, if you’re reviewing what went wrong for the Packers in Minnesota, is the Bears don’t have a Justin Jefferson on their roster. The Vikings wide receiver caught nine passes for 184 yards and two touchdowns. The Bears don’t figure to challenge the Green Bay secondary in the same manner, but they definitely need to get Darnell Mooney more involved after he was targeted only three times against the 49ers.
Catching the Packers at the start of the season as Rodgers gets accustomed to a revamped crew of wide receivers — plus the depth issues they have on the offensive line — should hearten the Bears. It’s potentially much better than playing them in another month, when the wideouts could be settled in and the linemen healthy.
“It’s just the next game,” defensive tackle Angelo Blackson said, reaching for a cliche any coach would appreciate — especially his own.
