Bears vs. Packers Game Balls: Down To The Wire

A split with the Green Bay Packers always seemed likely heading into the 2025 season, so the good news for the Chicago Bears is that it’s still a plausible outcome despite the team’s loss on Sunday in Green Bay.

Heck, the Bears might still have a chance to emerge 2-1 against Green Bay this year. But we’ll save that talk for a later date.

The Bears lost a nail-biter at Lambeau Field on Sunday, a result that mostly falls on the defense and their inability to stop Jordan Love and the Packers offense for most of the ballgame. Indeed, the Packers were able to hit on big play after big play. The Bears might be leading the league in explosive offensive plays this season, but it was the team wearing green and gold that looked that part on Sunday (they rank third in the league).

The fact that this was a game at all down the stretch is due to the ability of the Bears offense in the second half, though that followed a first half where the Bears offense looked like they were sleep walking. Or hibernating. Or both. But in the end, the Bears became the first offense to put up over 20 points and 300 yards of total offense against the Packers at Lambeau Field this season.

Credit to Ben Johnson for adjusting at halftime and getting this game to a point where it came down to the final possession. Early on, it looked like it was going to end up a blowout.

Let’s get to the game balls.

Offense Game Ball: WR Luther Burden III

There were a few choices here. Joe Thuney was solid on the O-line per usual, and Kyle Monangai continued to look like one of the best running backs of the 2025 draft class. He ran hard as nails yet again, and he literally took a piece off of Edgerrin Cooper’s helmet!

I would have liked to have seen more runs in the first half, and I believe that the Bears getting away from the run was one of the reasons the team struggled until the second half when Ben Johnson made it a point to run the ball at Green Bay. Well, that and Caleb Williams’ continued problems with accuracy that plagued him in the first half (and on the last throw of the game).

But for our game ball this week, I’m looking at rookie WR Luther Burden III. The Bears had to play without Rome Odunze on Sunday, and Burden made it known that he’s ready to contribute in a bigger way right now. He was as reliable as they come, leading the team with four receptions for 67 yards. Plus some outstanding route running, such as this right here:

You also love to see this kind of fire from a Bears player against the Packers.

Defense Game Ball (s): DT Grady Jarrett / LB T.J. Edwards

This was a tall task. Nobody really popped off the game tape, but two players had a relatively small, positive contribution. So I’m going with them both since I don’t think either was particularly worthy of sole possession of the WCG game ball trophy.

The Packers offense is good, but the Bears inability to stop anything in coverage was incredibly disappointing given their performance against the Eagles just over one week ago.

There were blown assignments and poor coverage from some of the Bears’ best players on defense. Some horrendous tackling technique. And a pre-game injury to Kyler Gordon which certainly threw things for a loop. Credit where credit is due, Matt LaFleur absolutely destroyed the Bears’ man coverage and out-schemed Dennis Allen.

Jaylon Johnson just isn’t himself yet, and that was painfully obvious on Sunday afternoon. Hopefully he’s able to work back to something resembling the All-Pro we all know and love when the Packers visit Soldier Field on December 20th.

When he’s on the field, Grady Jarrett has been a crucial part of the Bears’ run defense improving. He also had some success against the Packers’ stout offensive line, walking away on Sunday with a 23.5% pass rush win-rate. That was second on the team to Montez Sweat (35.3%), who also had some big moments in the game, though I just can’t look past Sweat missing that tackle on Brandon Jacobs late in the game. That may have been the most crucial play of the afternoon, and Sweat (and Gervon Dexter) completely whiffed.

Can someone please tell Gervon that we don’t tackle with our forearms?

Anyway, Jarrett finished the game with three tackles (two solo). His numbers don’t jump off the stat sheet, but his pass rush win-rate and being part of a couple of key run-stops made an impact beyond what might show up in the box score.

It was nice to T.J. Edwards back on field, so hopefully his continued presence will have the Bears’ defense trending in the right direction. He was decent against the run on Sunday and solid in tackling, showing up among the highest scoring Bears defenders via PFF.

The duo of Edwards and Gordon are key to the Bears run defense at the second (and third) level, so hopefully Gordon can get back healthy and the Bears can get their defense on track for the stretch run.

Special Teams Game Ball: None This Week

Slim pickings this week. Cairo Santos hit some field goals in tough conditions. He also completely botched a kickoff attempt the resulted in the Packers getting the ball at the 40 and scoring just four plays later.

Daniel Hardy has been strong at times for the Bears in special teams coverage this year, always playing hard and often times coming up with a tackle. He had a nice one on a third quarter kickoff. If I were to have avoided a game ball, it may have been to him simply on that play.

Tory Taylor was not good enough. Punting a touchback late in the first quarter from the Chicago 40 yard line, with the game still 0-0 and every yard mattering, just can’t happen from a punter who is supposed to be elite. He did hit a good one to the 7 yard line at the end of the second quarter, but it didn’t matter with just 10 seconds on the clock.

Bryan Orenchuk and myself will have plenty to say about this game this week on a new episode of Bears Over Beers. We’ll be live on Wednesday night on the 2nd City Gridiron YouTube channel, or available on demand via your favorite podcasting platform after. Our 2nd City Gridiron Podcast Channel is available on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, Audacy, and other popular podcast platforms.

Who would have received your game balls? Let us know in the comments section below.

Bears vs. Packers Game Balls: Down To The Wire

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