Chicago Bears vs. Green Bay Packers Preview & Prediction | PFF

Chicago Bears vs. Green Bay Packers Preview & Prediction | PFF

The PFF Plus holiday sale is going on right now. Use the promo code holiday30 to get yourself 30% off a PFF Plus subscription. That means that you get everything. The grades, the premium stats, all of the fantasy tools, all the betting tools, all the draft tools. It’s everything a football fan could want year round. Holiday 30. That’s what gets you 30% off that year-long PFF plus subscription at subscribe.pff.com. [Music] The Bears and the Packers game of the week. I think it’s game of the week and we’re getting it in the afternoon slate. It’s not Sunday Night Football. It’s not Monday Night Football. It’s right smack dab in the middle of the afternoon. So, we’re getting a treat here. This game’s in Green Bay. Dalton, you want to talk about the Bears or the Packers here because I feel like there’s a lot to discuss. There is a ton to discuss with this game. First of all, I would argue it’s the biggest Bears Packers game in several years, man. It it is going to be an absolute barn burner when it comes to the energy at Lambeau Field and this rivalry and both teams being this good. But to me, Ben Johnson, this this guy’s a psycho, Trevor, when it when it comes to the run game and the number of different diverse looks that he can throw at you. I’m going to be honest with you. I I don’t know that Ben Johnson has any hobbies. I think his hobby is just going home and turning the lights off and drawing up more run schemes. I It’s just ridiculous what he can do. I’m jealous, honestly. Uh uh seriously, I mean what a job to have, right? And what he’s done to turn around, not only look, the Bears offensive line is great. Absolutely. Top five offensive line in league easily, right? The run blocking has been outstanding. The two backs, Swift and Manungai, have been outstanding. But the way that Ben Johnson can scheme up and use motion to manipulate defenses into the fits and fronts that he wants them to be in, I don’t know that there’s anybody in the league, maybe Kyle Shanahan is the only other one. I don’t know that anybody’s in in in the league is better at doing this right now. Let me runs down some numbers for you, Trev. So, this is the Bears designed run game. I’m taking Caleb Williams scrambles out of it. Okay. They’ve run the second most designed runs with motion in the NFL behind the Atlanta Falcons. The second in rushing grade, the six in yards per carry. And those last two numbers are the important ones for me when you see Ben Johnson there on the screen. third in yards before contact per carry and the most explosive runs with motion in the NFL. Trev, this was so drastic and and it’s I had a hard time narrowing down the plays and clips I was going to use. I’ve got the film breakdown on this coming out tomorrow on the Bears run game. And honestly, I only did a series of plays from the Eagles game. I could have spent about an hour and a half talking about this and all of the different things that Johnson, whether it’s zone, pinpole schemes to the outside, running counters with different combinations of guys, getting downhill, running duo when he wants to. This Bears run game, not only are they super talented, especially on the offensive line. Ben Johnson draws up everything that he wants to and uses it in sequence the way that he wants to throughout the game. I don’t care who you are on defense. I don’t care how much talent you have on defense. This is a nightmare to prepare for. And for as much as this game is going to be talked about as Caleb Williams versus Jordan Love, the Packers number one task needs to be to figure out any sort of tendency the Bears have in the run game so they can slow it down because that team went into Philadelphia on Black Friday and physically manhandled and out schemed the Philadelphia Eagles last week. Yeah. And you and I talked about this on the Monday show, how the Bears running the football really well. It is great one because you always want to because you’re able to control the ball more and control the clock more and just control the game more. But it’s also great to see Caleb be a different type of quarterback. We watched him when he was at USC in Oklahoma and we wondered if is this the only version of football Caleb Williams is capable of playing, just being that Superman, that that that gunslinger, somebody who’s going to have the ball in his hands 50 times a game because that’s just what he was when he was in college. And you love drafting a player like that because he’s capable of doing those things. But what about the games where you go, “Hey, we only need you to throw the ball 23 times this game. You know, we’re running the ball really well. We just want you to be complimentary with the run game.” And I think Caleb is getting more confident at that, which is also showing growth. So, it’s great to see this offense is really firing on all cylinders in a way that is very complimentary and efficient under Ben Johnson right now and their current win streak. On the Packers side of things, you I highlighted this on the Wednesday show. They were so good on those fourth down got to have it situations. They were three for three on fourth down in on Thanksgiving against the Lions. Two of them were for a touchdown and the other one was the game ceiling catch which ended up being what won it for them there. You pointed out the fact that Jordan Love had a clean pocket passing grade of a 94.5 and then when he was not blitzed it was once again it was a 94.4. So, when things are kept clean for Jordan Love, he played very, very well. And you guys can see some of these on at at premium stats when you go over to uh Jordan Love’s um premium stats page. Like, if you go over to the game that we just had Oh, well, I guess you can see it right there. This this is Jordan Love’s premium stats page, as you guys can see. A 91.8 overall passing grade against the Detroit Lions. He’s feeling it. The two weeks prior 93.4. So, he’s playing some of his best football right now. He had four big-time throws, although I did point out on on Monday that he still just had a 63.5% adjusted completion percentage. So, it was a little bit of like boom and bust, but the boom has definitely been there for him. But the part that I want to emphasize here is what you talked about with the clean pocket passing grade last week because the Bears since they started this win streak that they are on since week nine 33.3 blitz percentage that is 13th most in the NFL. But they are just 26th in pass rush grade. They are 28th in pass rushers win percentage and they are 22nd in the NFL in total pressures generated. So Dalton that makes me feel like Jordan Loves going to have the opportunity to be clean in that pocket in this game. Now somebody in the chat haven’t checked the weather channel or anything like that, but somebody in the chat’s mentioning it’s high of 15°. Maybe some wind is involved in this game too. So the elements in Green Bay certainly could play a part here. But from what we’ve seen, even from the the the the Bears in in what’s been a really good month, month and a half for them, they’ve still struggled to generate that pressure. And if they’re going to let Jordan Love be clean, man, he has been playing really well when he is not under pressure. And I think that he’s been able to have some big time throws, full punt and and and and copyright uh included there. I think that he has been massive at that. and he has been able to string together a lot of big-time throws and a lot of big-time plays. I’m going to go with the Packers. Now, again, just seeing I didn’t know that the weather was going to be that cold and if there’s wind that’s going to be involved and you know, some of the elements, maybe it’s not as high scoring as I’m about to predict it, but because the Bears have struggled to really get after the quarterback over the last month, I’m going to go Packers 31, Bears 21, but I think that this could be a really close game. Vegas has given I don’t know if you saw this. Vegas has given the Bears six and a half. The Packers are six and a half point favorites in this one which obviously I’m not too shocked looking at my score of of of 31 to 24 because I think that that’s the game script there. I just feel as though the Packers are going to have an opportunity to stack a couple of points uh or a couple of scores I should say more in the fourth quarter. But uh I feel like as a line a line for this game six and a half is is pretty big. What do you think about this one? Who do you think is going to win? You know, if it’s going to be 15 degrees out there, I’m I’m I’m pulling the switcheroooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo on you, Trevor. I’m going to do it. Okay. I I I have it. You’re going with the team that’s running the ball. You know, I’m I’m going to go with it. I’m going to go with Ben Johnson in this offensive line. I I had the Packers written down. And you know what? Right now, I’m going to change it. I’m going to change it. Give me the Bears in this run game. 24 to 20. That cold outside, the team that can run the football better. Give me this offensive line. I’m gonna take Chicago to go into Lambo and get a win. I I didn’t have this originally, but the more I’ve thought about it now, I I’m I’m gonna go with it. I’m gonna see what Johnson has against this front seven. And the Packers are going to need to be able to stop the run. They did it last week against Detroit. But right now, this run game and this offensive line is better than Detroit’s is. And I thought the Lions best moments where they were getting downhill in the run game. I was very 50/50 on this game anyway. I think six and a half is too much. I I really do. I think that’s too much. Anyway, I’m going to switch my pick. I’m going Bears 24 to 20. Okay.

PFF’s Dalton Wasserman and Trevor Sikkema preview the matchup between The Chicago Bears and The Green Bay Packers.

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