Bears Pick Apart Packers

By Benjy Lipsman in News on Sep 11, 2006 3:50PM

Well, that sure looked easy! Opening up at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, the Bears made it perfectly clear who controls the NFC North this year, shutting out the Packers 26-0. This was the first time in Brett Favre's career that the Packers had been held scoreless.

The Bears put together a complete effort, winning this game because of their offense, defense and special teams. Rex Grossman looked like a real QB, compiling a 98.6 quarterback rating by completing 18 of 26 passes for 262 yards, 1 TD and 1 interception. Muhsin Muhammad caught 6 of those passes, for 102 yards. And Grossman even found his tight end, Desmond Clark. Five times for 77 yards. Bernard Barrian only caught one pass, but it was a nice 49-yard TD strike only minutes into the game. Perhaps the biggest concern about the offense was the running game. Neither Thomas Jones nor Cedric Benson really got going, averaging just 3 yards per carry combined on 32 carries.

The defense looked tough, like we all expected they would. They held the Packers scoreless. They intercepted Favre twice. They sacked him three times. Even a number of the rookies got into the act, with Danieal Manning making one of the picks and Mark Anderson recording one of the sacks.

Another rookie made perhaps the best play of the day. Devin Hester returned a punt 84 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter to cap the scoring.

We Bears fans are sure breathing a bit easier this Monday morning with our team 1-0, and the win a decisive one. With the Pack, you just never know. Now we can look forward to next Sunday's game against the Detroit Lions at Soldier Field. They played a close one against the defending NFC Champion Seattle Seahawks yesterday, holding last year's top offense to just 9 points in a 9-6 loss. Come Sunday, we'll learn whether the Seahawks played that poorly or whether the Lions are better than anyone expected.

Image via Yahoo! News