GREEN BAY — A little more than six months ago, the Bears drafted quarterback Caleb Williams with the No. 1 overall pick, and on Sunday he got his first taste of the NFL’s oldest rivalry, which Green Bay has recently dominated.
From the Packers’ perspective, this will be the second straight year and fifth time in the last 16 seasons that they will face a rookie quarterback who was the top pick in the draft. Oddly enough, all of the matchups — like Sunday’s game at Soldier Field — have been on the road, and the last three have been close and high-scoring.
Just last December, Green Bay traveled to face Carolina and QB Bryce Young, whose Panthers rallied from a 14-point deficit in the fourth quarter with two TD passes to DJ Chark to tie the game. The Packers responded with a go-ahead field goal with just 19 seconds left, then held on for a 33-30 win when Young ran out of time when he punted the ball into Green Bay territory to end the game.
Back in 2012, the Packers lost a similar shootout in Indianapolis against QB Andrew Luck, who pulled the Colts out of a halftime hole 21-3 with the help of receiver Reggie Wayne’s monster game. Wayne capped a 13-catch, 212-yard drive with the go-ahead TD with 35 seconds left, and the Packers missed a long field goal moments later in a 30-27 decision.
The year before that, it was Carolina back and QB Cam Newton, who passed for 432 yards but also threw three interceptions in Green Bay’s 30-23 win. With the Packers up by seven points and trying to kill the final three minutes off the clock, Jordy Nelson hauled in an 84-yard TD pass. Newton answered with a late score, but the Packers recovered the onside kick.
The only one of these relatively recent matchups against rookie QBs ranked No. 1 overall that wasn’t particularly close came on Thanksgiving in 2009 in Detroit. Matthew Stafford didn’t play in the first meeting with Green Bay that year, then the Packers picked him up four times on holiday, as Charles Woodson returned one for a TD in a 34-12 victory.
Oddly, before 2009, it had been 20 years since the Packers had faced a rookie QB who was the top overall pick — Dallas’ Troy Aikman in 1989. In between, the Packers played JaMarcus Russell’s Raiders in 2007, and Eli Manning’s Giants in 2004, and Michael Vick’s Falcons in 2001, but those rookies didn’t play against Green Bay in those games.
Back to the here and now. The Bears’ current offensive struggles don’t lend themselves to predictions for a high-scoring game like the one described previously, but you never know.
The Bears have scored just 12 points, no touchdowns, over their last two games, and Williams was sacked nine times last week to push his league-leading total to 38 points. 95 points during a previous three-game winning streak led to the firing of offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, who was replaced by Thomas Brown.
Last year before Green Bay’s game against Young in Carolina, the Panthers were held to 18 or fewer points over eight straight games until putting up a 30-point lead over the Packers. Carolina’s offensive coordinator then? brown.
The Packers are poised to show some different looks and change some tendencies, but defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley emphasized that his staff didn’t spend the week trying to guess what Brown might change with the offense and Williams. This can be a fool’s errand.
“At the end of the day, we’re going to play defense,” Hafley said. “We’ll go play our game.”
Despite all the scrutiny and criticism Williams has faced, the Packers bring a healthy respect for him into this contest. They spent more time studying his three-game winning streak when he was lighting up the scoreboard than his recent results.
“Definitely a guy that’s going to create on his own, coming out of the pocket — just a really good improviser,” said rookie safety Evan Williams, who played against Caleb Williams last year when Oregon and USC tied.
Added fellow safety Xavier McKinney, who believes Williams has a bright future: “He’s actually very solid in the pocket. He has good feel and awareness when he’s under pressure, and he’s able to get out and stretch the play down the field.”
Williams has a host of weapons in veteran receivers DJ Moore and Keenan Allen, as well as Cole Kmet and rookie first-round receiver Rome Odunze. This is the type of playmaking group the Bears were missing with their previous first-round investments in quarterbacks Mitch Trubisky and Justin Fields.
Furthermore, the Bears are expected to have their offensive tackles back from injury after they missed last week’s game, when the Patriots blitzed Chicago’s backups in posting those nine sacks.
Better protection plus a new coordinator and play-caller could give Williams a new lease on life as a starter, and the Packers expect a top shot at the pick.
“He’s strong, he shoots the ball, he’s elusive, he can throw the ball down the field,” Hafley said. “I’ve seen times when he came across the plate and hit the ass read…
“They won at home 4-1. Two weeks ago, everyone was talking about winning the league or being in the thick of things in the division, so no one is going to take this lightly. Not at all.”
