Jordan Love torches the Bears, flipping the narrative on the Packers in divisional games
Last year, the Green Bay Packers were a fingernail from taking the collar in the division. This year, they're 4-0, thanks in large part to the superlative play of Jordan Love.
Good morning!
The Green Bay Packers are back atop the NFC North after the latest installment of the NFL’s oldest rivalry. Jordan Love tossed three touchdowns, shaking off an early interception, and leading the Packers to a 28-21 win.
After a season that saw Green Bay go 1-5 in the division, coming up small in its biggest rivalry games, the Packers have come out firing in every NFC North tilt this season. In today’s free Monday newsletter, we talk about Jordan Love keying those fast starts, the return of Jayden Reed, and if there are lingering concerns about the defense after a second-half push from the Chicago Bears.
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What’s the biggest difference in divisional games this season for the Packers?
Peter Bukowski: The short answer is Jordan Love. The long answer is Jordan Love being empowered by his head coach. And it started Week 1 against the Detroit Lions when Matt LaFleur called downfield shot after downfield shot for Love against Detroit’s man coverage defense.
The Chicago Bears came into Sunday playing one of the highest rates of man coverage and Cover-2 this season. They can’t rush the passer when they don’t blitz, and they don’t generate pressure when they do blitz.
Love ate Dennis Allen’s blitz packages for an early dinner, going 9/12 for 171 yards and all three scores off Bears blitzes. And he’s winning just as much with his superlative arm as he is with his brain pre-snap.
Christian Watson, who has become the player this season we thought he could be after he broke out as a rookie, said he knew on 3rd-and-3 the Packers were going to score when Love made the check pre-snap.
Love identified the heavy blitz look and a single-high safety who was likely to shade to the trips side. Watson won inside on a slant, and Love found him for a 41-yard catch-and-run touchdown to answer an 11-point Bears scoring spree to tighten the game in the second half.
“Anytime you get man coverage, that’s the mentality that we should have,” Watson said after the game.
“That’s what all receivers want. We want those man-on-man situations, one-on-one.”
And Love has become one of the league’s top quarterbacks against man coverage this season, thanks in part to LaFleur finding some new answers for man coverage with switch releases, using structure to get his guys in advantageous positions. But he’s also calling the game to generate big plays.
They could have been happy to go into halftime with a 7-3 lead, knowing they’d get the ball after the break. Micah Parsons and the defense had suffocated Caleb Williams to that point, only allowing that late field goal because of two Keisean Nixon personal foul calls.
Instead, LaFleur dialed up a deep shot that Love hit to Bo Melton on a critical late-half score to go up 14-3 and create a cushion the Packers would need in the second half when Williams started to make some plays.
Some of the conservative calls from the middle of the season from LaFleur have melted away in these must-win division games, and the Packers’ offense has been the better for it.
How did Jayden Reed’s return change the Packers offense?
PB: The box score won’t say anything too special happened with Reed, but there’s a reason the team called the very first pass of the game for their former leading receiver, who has been out since Week 2.
Even amid a crowded receiver rotation, Reed tied for the team lead in targets and got another two touches on jet sweeps. His ability as a yards-after-catch player in this offense has no equal with Tucker Kraft on IR for the season.
Melton may have scored that big touchdown, but he doesn’t have the same gravity as Reed as a jet sweep or orbit motion player. LaFleur has shown he’ll play Reed in the backfield, use him on those spinner action, single-wing runs, or spit the ball out to him on screens to create opportunities for him in space.
They don’t have another receiver who can do the things he can do.
Reed has never been the man coverage killer for the Packers — that was Watson once again. But the amount of juice on the field, when Matthew Golden gets healthy, to put Watson, Reed, and Golden all on the field at once, is the kind of “oh shit” speed defensive coordinators need Ambien to deal with.
After having the Bears offense in a straitjacket for the first half, are there any lingering concerns about the defense giving up 18 second-half points?
PB: Not really. It took several impossible plays from Williams, including a touchdown that went right through Keisean Nixon’s hands, and several absurd calls on the Packers’ defense, to make this game as competitive as it was in the second half.
Williams’ throw to Cole Kmet rolling to his right is the weekly Williams highlight play, along with the touchdown to Olamide Zaccheaus. He slithered out of a near-sack from Evan Williams as well.
But for the game, the Bears averaged 4.6 yards per play. Jeff Hafley had Williams seeing ghosts in the dropback game. He mixed simulated pressure and actual blitzes, flummoxing the Chicago offensive line and generating free rushers.
Micah Parsons wrecked the first half for the Bears offense. Then Hafley used him judiciously as a decoy in some crucial situations in the second half, overloading one side of the line, knowing Chicago would want to slide to Parsons. That was a wrinkle the Packers used against Jared Goff on a critical third down on Thanksgiving as well.
After a historic day on the ground on Black Friday, the Bears managed just 4.3 yards per carry against the Pack. They also held an explosive offense that thrives on big plays to 5.3 yards per pass with the game-winning interception on fourth down.
Nixon had his struggles on Sunday, taking two bad penalties — one of them as badly called and another of them was a bad decision by Nixon — and failing to knock down a touchdown pass that went through his hands. But he made the play of the game, floating off his assignment to Kmet, who would have been wide open for the touchdown.
The Packers technically busted the coverage. Ben Johnson called the same play Williams converted earlier in the game on fourth-and-one. On that play, Williams used his legs to pick up the first down on a classic play-action slide call. Nearly half the Packers defense swarmed to the quarterback, leaving Kmet free.
Nixon, chasing the play from the backside, saw Kmet and dropped off to make the perfect interception.
Evan Williams admitted that it was his assignment, and seemed to invoke the story of the holiday season about Nixon coming to the rescue.
“That was definitely my man, but the back kind of came out. I knew Quay [Walker] was on the back, and I mean that would have been pitch and catch if he would have been able to get it to the flat,” Williams said after the game.
“So, kind of, just off instinct, took off to play the flat, and was praying that somebody was behind me to make the play on the corner [route], and sure enough, like Jesus himself, 25, comes out [of] the blue and makes a play.”
Parting Shot
PB: For all the big plays through the air, the biggest play of the game came on the ground from Josh Jacobs. On third-and-1, Jacobs ripped off a 21-yard run to put the Packers in position to get the go-ahead touchdown. In fact, Jacobs powered the entire final drive.
LaFleur likely wanted to sustain something, not just to avoid giving the ball back to the Bears, but also to give his defense a rest after they’d played half the fourth quarter on the previous drive alone.
On the ensuing eight-play drive, Jacobs touched the ball on six of the plays. His 21-yard rip set up the game-winning touchdown, where the Packers feel automatic in the low red zone, handing the ball to their bell cow back.
Jacobs didn’t have to be the whole offense like the run game was against the Vikings, but he helped the team stay on track throughout the game, and then on a day of big plays for Green Bay through the air, he made the biggest one on the ground.