4 things we learned from Packers’ dominant 35-14 win over Bears

The Green Bay Packers strolled out to a 35-14 win over the Chicago Bears on Thursday Night Football, never being seriously threatened as Mike Glennon once again devolved into a turnover machine. Aaron Rodgers threw for four touchdown passes, two of them going to Jordy Nelson in the rout. Green Bay moves to 3-1 with the win while Chicago drops to 1-3.

The Packers jumped out to a fast 14-0 lead after Rodgers led an opening-drive touchdown and Glennon got strip-sacked on the Bears’ first play, setting up another Packers score. A lightning strike forced the game to be delayed 45 minutes, but it didn’t help the Bears find a spark on offense. A two-minute drill touchdown at the end of the half was the only time Chicago’s offense looked like a threat, at least until garbage time later on.

The Packers extended their lead in the second half even with the injuries piling up, the most serious one being a scary helmet-to-helmet hit that led to Davante Adams being taken to a hospital. Rodgers threw two more touchdown passes to ice the game, with the fourth quarter largely being academic.

Glennon committed four turnovers on the night — two interceptions, two lost fumbles — that directly led to 21 Packers points. The Bears defense did what it could against a formidable opponent, but any shot they had of getting into the game was torpedoed by Glennon’s carelessness with the ball. Through four games, he already has eight turnovers.

The Bears have tried to pound the rock as much as possible to hide Glennon, but they had no shot on Thursday. Jordan Howard finished with just 53 yards on 18 carries, with the score and most of those yards coming in the meaningless fourth quarter. Tarik Cohen was a non-factor with 48 total yards on 10 touches.

By falling behind early and failing to get the ground game going, the Bears were forced to rely on Glennon slinging the ball, with predictable results. At the end of the night, he had 218 yards, one touchdown, and the four turnovers on 21-of-33 passing.

This is not a sustainable game plan, and it will continue being a problem as long as Glennon keeps killing drives with his turnovers. At some point, the Bears need to see what they have in Mitchell Trubisky, and with 11 days until their next game (Monday night in Week 5), this might be their best chance to get him integrated in the first team.

Despite the big win, the Packers have major injury concerns, Adams being the biggest, but the Packers also lost their top two running backs early in the game. Ty Montgomery suffered broken ribs in the opening drive and will probably be out multiple weeks. Rookie Jamaal Williams also left the game with a knee injury, leaving Green Bay down to fellow rookie Aaron Jones and fullback Aaron Ripkowski on the depth chart.

The good news is that Jones stepped up and produced, recording 49 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries. However, it’s just another position depleted by injuries and more worries for the Packers, who are still missing their two starting tackles on the offensive line. Rodgers has dealt with these problems before, and he has thrived under such adversity. But he’ll be asked to do it all over again. With road games against the Dallas Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings coming up, the Packers can’t get healthy soon enough.

Despite the lopsided scoreline, the Bears defense came to play and did what it could to limit Rodgers, holding him to just 179 passing yards before he took a seat in the fourth quarter. There were some big coverage gaps, particularly on Nelson’s second touchdown where he was completely uncovered in the end zone. But for the most part, the defense was just fine before the game got out of hand in the second half.

It’s not hard to see why this defense was able to shut down Ben Roethlisberger last week. Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio will have his side of the field keeping the team in games, even while Glennon sputters along on offense.

Remember when the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers delivered a classic thriller last Thursday night? Yeah, turns out that might have been an outlier in TNF games. This week was mostly business as usual — a blowout score, glacial pacing, a million flags, and even a weather delay all made this game a chore to sit through.

Next week, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are hosting the New England Patriots, so hopefully we get a more competitive outing.