When the Chicago Bears face the Green Bay Packers this coming Sunday, they will be looking to get their first win in Lambeau Field since Ben Johnson took over as the Bears head coach after defeating them twice at home last season including in the playoffs.
Injuries are certainly a concern with starting quarterback Caleb Williams not playing in this game, three of the starting offensive linemen on the injury report although they were all able to practice on Thursday and running back Kyle Monangai dealing with turf toe. However, the Bears are a resilient team who have already won with Case Keenum and Tyson Bagent at quarterback.
They also still have D’Andre Swift who was able to practice on Thursday despite his injury issues. Chicago’s wide receiver
room is also healthy, meaning all their top pass catchers will be available for this game. The Bears are also getting healthier on defense with Cam Lewis and Kyler Gordon being full participants in practice on Wednesday and Thursday.
As Chicago looks to get to 4-1 and defeat the Packers for the third time in a row dating back to last season, here are three reasons for optimism.
Green Bay cannot run the ball
The New York Jets came into their Week 4 game against the Bears as one of the worst rushing offenses in the NFL. However, the Packers are significantly worse. They have yet to have at least 100 rushing yards in a game and it took until their Week 4 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to surpass 70 rushing yards in a game. Their performance in Week 3 against the Atlanta Falcons was the worst of all with just 17 rushing yards which is their third-fewest rushing yards in a game in franchise history. Chicago may be allowing 4.9 yards per attempt this season, but Green Bay’s run game is historically bad. They do not even have a rushing touchdown yet. This makes it very easy for the Bears to make Green Bay’s offense one-dimensional and take over this game.
Chicago likes to score
The Bears were tied with the Kansas City Chiefs for the most red zone trips through the first four weeks of the season and even though Chicago has struggled with capitalizing on their red zone trips, they are still putting up points. With the exception of their Week 2 loss to the Minnesota Vikings which was severely impacted by weather, the Bears have scored at least 23 points in every game this season. In the two games this season where Green Bay has allowed their opponent to score at least 20 points, they lost. The only opponents who did not score at least 20 points against them were the Jets and the Buccaneers who had a combined one win after the first four weeks of the season. The Packers are not good at preventing points against good offenses and Chicago is good at scoring. This is a recipe for success for the Bears.
The Bears’ defense is not giving up a lot of points
After giving up 37 points in the season opener, Chicago’s defense has given up 28 points in the past three games combined. Meanwhile, the Packers have scored the fifth-fewest points per game out of any team in the NFL. They have yet to top 23 points in a game while the Bears were able to do that last week against the Jets despite only scoring twice in the red zone. Chicago’s defense relied on turnovers last season and while they are still getting the turnovers, they are also more fundamentally sound and shutting down opposing teams. As an added bonus, Green Bay is pretty bad in the red zone. All signs point to the Packers not scoring a lot of points in this game.
Follow Bears Wire on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
This article originally appeared on Bears Wire: 3 reasons for optimism as the Bears face the Packers in Week 5
