It wasn’t pretty, but the Green Bay Packers extended their winning streak to five games with a 21-14 victory over the Chicago Bears. For the first two minutes and the last quarter the Packers looked like a playoff team on an impressive run. Everywhere in-between they looked like a certain 2008 team that ended up 6-10.
On Green Bay’s first play from scrimmage running back Ryan Grant took the handoff to the left side and ran untouched for a season-long 62 yard score. After that, stalled drives, turnovers, and a leaky pass defense made the score only 13-7 at the break, even though the Packer’s had dominated the half.
The first drive of the third quarter ended in a bizarre play in which quarterback Aaron Rodgers was hit as he threw, then caught his own pass, tried to throw again as he was being taken down, resulting in a fumble, which was recovered by Chicago.
That turnover led to a Bears touchdown, and suddenly Chicago had a 14-13 lead against a team they had let into their red-zone on the first three drives of the game.
The rest of the quarter was taken up by the rivals punting back and forth, fighting for field position. However, Nick Collins intercepted Bears quarterback Jay Cutler at the beginning of the fourth, leading to another Ryan Grant touchdown, this time a one-yard dive. Rodgers then hit wide receiver Greg Jennings in the corner of the end-zone for the two point conversion making it 21-14.
That was the final score, as Green Bay’s defense never let the Bears cross midfield again. Despite the closeness of the score against a 5-8 team, the Packers dominated the game and had the lead when it mattered. That’s what contending teams do.
Rodgers threw 16-24 for 180 yards, hitting tight end Jermichael Finely for a team high 70 of those, and Ryan Grant ran for 137 yards. On defense cornerback Charles Woodson had an interception in addition to Collins’.
Next up the Packers play at Pittsburg (6-7) on Sunday at 3:15, followed by a home game against Seattle and the regular season finale at Arizona.