GREEN BAY – It wasn’t the variety of runs the Green Bay Packers called in their 27-10 victory over the Chicago Bears Sunday night at Lambeau Field.
It was the volume.
Against their division rival, a team with a defensive head coach trying to bring some monster back to the midway, the Packers knew exactly what kind of game they were going to be in.
But with their stud offensive lineman, Elgton Jenkins, returning to the starting lineup for the first time since tearing his left ACL on Nov. 21 in Minnesota and the running back tandem of Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon well-rested from a regrettable 23 touches in the opening-season loss to the Vikings, the Packers strapped up their pads and went after the Bears on the ground.
BOX SCORE:Packers 27, Bears 10
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It took time and effort, but when the night was over Jones had 15 carries for 132 yards and a touchdown, Dillon had 18 carries for 61 yards and the Packers had just their third 200-yard rushing performance (203 total) in the Matt LaFleur era.
“We knew what it was going to be coming in this rivalry game,” Dillon said. “Especially with the Bears, it’s always going to be one of those, you kind of got to strap up your chin strap, bring your lunch pail to work (days).
“One of them blue-collar games.”
The 38 rushing attempts were the second most under LaFleur, trailing only the 39 times his team ran it against the Bears on Nov. 29,2020, although Matt Eberflus wasn’t the Chicago head coach then. What made it most remarkable was that it was the same plays over and over and over again.
They ran some fly motion sweeps but most of those were shovel passes to receivers. For the most part,they ran some basic inside zone, a couple of powers and some outside zone.
“Their run game, it was pretty simple,” Bears defensive tackle Justin Jones said. “But they are really good at what they do. Credit to their O-line. Everybody got healthy this week, and they came back, and that give them a boost upfront.”
The simplicity of it all even struck wide receiver Sammy Watkins, a major beneficiary of the effect the run game had on the defense with three catches for 93 yards. Watkins, in his first year with the Packers, played in the same offense with the Los Angeles Rams, but it surprised him nonetheless.
“It felt like we ran the same five (running) plays,” he said. “I think we came out, balled out, played our style of ball. We ran the freaking ball. We didn’t run it last weekend. This week, the running backs carried the frickin’ load.
“When you’re trying to build a championship team, it starts with your run game.”
LaFleur and his staff had forgotten that in Week 1, handing off to Jones and Dillon a combined 15 times. Considering they averaged 6.3 yards per carry, it was one of the worst misuses of talent since LaFleur took over the club.
Of course, he did not have Jenkins last week, which might have affected his game plan going into the game, but it was no excuse as the game wore on. This time around, knowing he’d have Jenkins at right tackle, Royce Newman at right guard and Jon Runyan (concussion) back at left guard, he didn’t mess around.
No one should downplay the impact Jenkins had either.
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“Ifhe’s not in the lineup, we don’t win that game and it transcends his level of play, what he’s able to bring to us,” LaFleur said. “First night out, I thought he did a great job, and certainly there’s some things that he’llwant to clean up, like every guy, but just his mere presence out there. Obviously, having him at right tackle with Royce at right guard, I really think that was just a big-time difference for our offense.”
Jenkins wasn’t as good as he’ll be next week or four weeks from now, but the fact LaFleur came out running to the right showed just how much he trusted his star lineman. Whereas Jake Hanson, the starting right guard last week, couldn’t move anybody on the Vikings’ front, Jenkins took it to the Bears with the same aggression he showed when he was a Pro Bowl guard in 2020.
“I wasn’t too worked up,” Jenkins said of his first game back. “It took a while (to get back in the swing of things), but I worked on being calm and just going out and playing my game. Our running backs ran hard tonight. We blocked and when there was a holethey hit and when there wasn’t they just ran through contact.”
Jones was especially effective. The Bears’ front wanted to get off the line of scrimmage quickly and create penetration in the backfield, so if there was a hole it didn’t stay open very long with so many players on the move. They kept their safeties back to start the game, but as the Packers had more rushing success, they brought one up to help fill a gap.
Jones specializes in finding his next gear once he decides which hole to hit, but against the Bears he seemed like he was playing in the same gear all game long and just trusting that the hole would be there. If not, he tried to run over people.
“They're a really fast-flowing defense, they play with a lot of effort,” Dillon said. “And they really swarm to the ball. And so we knew that going in. The blocking units, tight end, O-line, receivers, everybody was doing their job, helping us out, opening up holes where we could.
“We knew it was definitely going to be one of those, you’ve got to put your foot in the ground and eventually they'll start to hit. But you got to get what you can. Sometimes you're going to have to grind some out. It's not always going to be the prettiest.”
The Packers are going to face some even tougher defenses in the weeks to come, starting with Tampa Bay on the road next week. The Packers have had moderate success running against the Buccaneers in two meetings under LaFleur, averaging 4.35 yards per carry on 36 attempts.
It’s questionable whether they’ll be able to run the same five plays repeatedly, but quarterback Aaron Rodgers said they won’t have to. He said the possibilities are endless with Jones and Dillon either together or separately on the field.
“I just feel like the package we have for those guys, we’re just getting in there,” he said. "We expanded from Week 1 but there’s so much more we can do with those guys. I think we’re just getting started with those guys and some of the things we can do.”
