marty
Posts: 13049
Joined: 12/28/2007
Status: offline
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I expected the Packers to blowout the Bears in this one, so the Packers are not as good as I thought, and the Bears are better than I thought. I still think Lovie is the best coach in the division, and he took a team with inferior talent on the road against a team that had its' offense clicking in the pre-season, and he made it a game that could have went either way. Lovie instills a toughness that the Vikings now have, and the Packers lack. His team looked well coached, defensive line played very well. I think his team lacks the horses, but by the end of the year Cutler COULD have them rolling, and they could end up taking the division. I think the stupidest play was a bomb on 3rd and 1, the one that went to Jennings to win the game. Although the Packers have the WRs to their advantage, a deep pass like that is low percentage, and if it had NOT worked out, they would have had to do a 4th and 1 where the defense probably would have been geared up to stop the run. It would have been smarter for the Pack to just try to pick up the 1st down with a run play. The pass to Jennings might have worked, but I think if they did the bomb 5 more times this season in the exact same situation, I think they would probably convert 2 of 5, maybe even 1 of 5. This shows me that McCarthy is not very smart. This game also showed that a physical defense can rattle Rodgers, to the point where his passes are off. He has a pretty good deep game, but is not excellent with the short stuff, to convert 3rd downs and pull out close games (like Big Ben does regularly). I also think Cutler is about the same way. The Vikes have an advantage in this area with Favre, but I still think he needs to complete some deep passes to keep teams honest. So you had 2 non clutch QBs going at it, and one of them had to lose. I expected going into the game that Rodgers would be MUCH better in sync with his MUCH better WR corps, while Cutler would struggle being in sync with his INFERIOR WR corps. Therefore, I expected a blowout win for the Pack with their opportunistic defense. But the Bears kept it close because they are disciplined, well coached and physical. The Packers were lucky to win this one, and could well lose to the Urlacher-less Bears later in the season in Chicago, should Cutler get his timing down with WRs. I wouldn't count on Viking wins against the Bears either, it's too bad the Vikes don't play the Bears early in the season. I think the Vikes will probably split with the Pack, I'm just not sure which game which team will win.
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