Packers vs. Bears: Notes from an ugly loss

The Chicago Bears seemingly had a good chance to beat the Green Bay Packers on Thursday. So much so, in fact, that half of us here at Windy City Gridiron predicted that the Monsters of the Midway would end up beating their division rivals.

And then the game started.

Between lightning delays, terrible quarterback play and a despicable hit, it was tough for a lot of Bears fans to watch the game, myself included. When I wasn’t busy cringing or complaining, I was able to take these things away from the game.

• First things first, let’s keep Davante Adams in our thoughts and prayers. The injury he suffered was one of the worst that I’ve seen in recent years. Luckily for him, he was reported to have movement in all extremities, which is a sign that the worst possible outcome will not come true. What Danny Trevathan did was just completely unacceptable. Although I’m a Bears fan - and will be until the day I die - it’s hard not to side with Adams in this situation.
• You know the drill by now: Mike Glennon did bad, which means it’s time for us to start calling for the Bears to start Mitch Trubisky. But, for whatever reason, they will refuse to start the rookie. John Fox is on extremely thin ice, and one more bad season will likely result in his being fired. Why, then, are they starting a quarterback that does more to hinder the team’s chances of winning than actually make the team around him better?
• The Bears had two sacks, one from both Leonard Floyd and Pernell McPhee. Considering how thin the Packers were at offensive tackle, though, they should’ve easily ended up with more. The offensive line that Green Bay started this week would rank as one of the league’s worst, if not the worst, but yet they still managed to neutralize Chicago’s pass rush for the most part. The Bears’ defensive line wasn’t able to consistently put pressure on Aaron Rodgers, and the edge rushers weren’t much better. In fact, Pro Football Focus stated that Rodgers was under pressure on just 25 percent of his dropbacks, which is the lowest percentage for him all year so far. It was encouraging, though, to see Floyd finally pick up his first sack of the year.
• The Bears used their wide receivers a lot more than they did last week. Glennon threw downfield a lot more, for better or worse. Kendall Wright and Deonte Thompson both played significant roles in the offense this week.
• Glennon was total garbage yesterday, but his seven-yard touchdown pass to Wright was actually very good. He placed the ball perfectly in the corner of the end zone.

• Glennon also threw a good deep ball to Josh Bellamy which eventually fell incomplete. Even though Bellamy was being triple-teamed in coverage and Glennon had Wright wide open down the field, the pass itself was decent enough that Bellamy could’ve come down with it. Unfortunately, Bellamy isn’t exactly known for having the best hands in the world. When the Bears decide to start Trubisky, he’s not going to have much in the way of weapons to throw to. While this is fine for the time being, they’re going to have to improve at wideout through free agency, the draft or both.
• Jordan Howard failed to build upon his stupendous Week 3 performance. He was able to score a garbage-time touchdown, but he simply didn’t bounce off of defenders like he did against the Steelers. Green Bay had Tarik Cohen neutralized for the most part, too. As Adam Jahns of the Chicago Sun-Times pointed out, the Packers put more pressure on the Bears’ offensive line by putting five mine at the line of scrimmage and having linebackers and/or defensive backs blitz often.
• Who was at fault for the embarrassing “leg fumble” that happened in the first quarter? You know, this one:

• This play was simply poor communication on the part of Glennon and Cody Whitehair. Whitehair’s snap was at Glennon’s knees, which has been a reoccurring issue for the center so far this year. Given how incredibly unathletic Glennon has proven to be, it’s not surprising that he was unable to bend over and grab the ball quick enough. Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune said that Whitehair blamed himself for the fumble, as the snap was supposed to be on two.
• I stated in my notes on Monday that the Bears were going to have to find a replacement for Connor Barth. He proved that again this week, missing his only field goal attempt of the night. As of this writing, Barth has the second-lowest field goal percentage in the NFL, with only Los Angeles Chargers rookie Younghoe Koo trailing him. Over the past two seasons, Barth has only made five of the 10 field goal attempts that were 40 or more yards. That’s just simply not going to work out in the long run.