The 2023 NFL opener for the Packers and the Bear was much anticipated and equally debated by professional talking heads and every arm chair QB in the entire midwest. And in the end…..quoting Dennis Green…”the Bears are who we thought they were.” What is very obvious is, the Bears are not who they thought they were. If you read all the hype, you would have to believe that the Bears were poised to make a move. Hell, Fox was running cartoons implying that Fields getting DJ Moore was the same as Josh Allen getting Stefon Diggs and making the leap to superstardom. And Jalen Hurts getting AJ Brown and making the Super Bowl. I mean, you can’t be serious! I’m not sure why the NFL is so determined to sell Fields as the next great QB, but he most certainly is not. He looked absolutely no different Sunday than he did all last year. He stares down his recievers, he makes one or maybe two of the 4 reads he needed to make on every pass. The Bears looked demolished by the middle of the 3rd quarter. It was kinda beautiful.
So guess what….Jordan Love don’t suck. He’s not a 3 win QB…the Pack are not going to crash and burn and they most certainly are not going to be the worst team in the league nor the NFC North. All the bitching and the guarantees that Love wasn’t the guy and that Rodgers MUST be kept is a combo of hero worship crossed with blind loyalty regardless of what one’s eyes can see and one’s ears can hear. I personally lost some respect for a lot of people as sports fans based on how ridiculous their arguments and defenses became. Is Love a lock? Hell no…it is Week 1. Is Love an NFL QB, of course he is…even the clowns chirping about him being a 3 win QB know better…they just needed to cling to AR12 for some reason. And seeing the Packers Offense, and not Rodgers version of the Packers Offense for the first time ever, was pretty excellent.
Once they got Jones going it was game over. Six to eight yards on first down and now the whole playbook is open for two downs to get a couple of yards and keep the chains moving. Remember, the one year LeFluer was OC in TN, Derrick Henry ran for like 40 miles that year…he knows how to run the football. The defense surrendered a few decent chunks on a few different plays but for the most part they were solid. And it sure helps when the other QB is Justin Fields. Equally cool is 4 of the 5 PFF top defenders in that game from an impact point of view were Walker, Wyatt, Gary and Savage…otherwise known as Bust-3, Bust-4, Bust 1 and Bust-2 in quite a few opinions. Likely those folks are pretty silent this week (yea, right). Kicker looked solid, punter looked solid, Special Teams looked good and talented.
And when it is all said and done, Sunday’s game was exactly one thing…a win in Week 1 against a division rival. There will be adjustments, there will be great days and probably a few piss poor days but I saw everything I needed to see on Sunday. The QB is inexperienced in NFL games but a veteran of the NFL and he will be excellent in the long term. The defense is looking as though they are playing as one unit instead of 2…the Packer swagger didn’t leave town with Rodgers. And truth be told, now that things are seemingly headed back to a team concept instead of separate divisions of AR12 Inc., the term addition by subtraction may actually apply, in some cases, to future First Ballot Hall of Famer. It is a long season, and the haters will have their moments from time to time, but I believe this team will end up far better than they were last year. The whole vibe was different and welcome…I am optimistic that the future is bright for the youngest team in the NFL. And the Bears absolutely do Still Suck.
