The Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Bears yet again. And now we wait.
For what? Who knows.
The Packers are on bye, their latest bye in recent memory, and the rest of the season feels like it has a lot of question marks hanging over it. When will the team finally be officially eliminated? Will the Packers play Jordan Love over Aaron Rodgers once eliminated? What will the team look like in its remaining contests? Will the defense ever resemble a professional squad?
It’s always great to see the Packers beat the Bears. I saw a lot of people advocating for the team to start the tank and improve its draft position. That’s a lot of nonsense. I don’t care about draft position, especially when it comes to the Packers/Bears rivalry. I ENJOY seeing the Packers win football games.
But that being said, the results of these final games are nowhere near as interesting to me as what they could potentially say about the Packers moving forward from this season. And with so much uncertainty, it’s kind of hard to predict what will happen.
The issue most people are focused on is who will be playing at quarterback. The Packers and Aaron Rodgers have made it clear that so long as the team is not mathematically eliminated, Rodgers will be the quarterback.
That means it’s very likely we have at least two more games of Rodgers under center this season.
But earlier this week, Brian Gutekunst mentioned that he didn’t need to see anything else out of Jordan Love to make the decision about whether to take on his fifth-year option. To me, this indicates he will definitely be doing it, because if he was feeling like Love might not be ready, it seems to me there would be a lot to gain out of seeing Love in action this final month.
So to me, it sounds like the plan is for Rodgers to play the rest of the year, and likely be back next year, WITH Love back for a fourth year behind him. And if I were a betting man, I’d say 2023 is Rodgers’ last year in Green Bay.
So if that’s the case, some of the intrigue of these final few weeks is gone. By now, we know exactly what to expect out of this offense with Rodgers in it. The emergence of Christian Watson has been fantastic, and it will be fun to see Romeo Doubs get back on the field with him. Rodgers is clearly hampered by injury, but it’ll take a lot to drag him off the field.
And so, we go into the bye week with a very “Ok, what now?” sort of feeling. There’s no promise of the postseason on the horizon. Instead of having four games left to build toward a championship run, as the Packers have been doing for the last several years, it’s four games of purgatory.
What an unsatisfying end to a disappointing season.
Wisconsin Beer of the Week
Who doesn’t love a good dunkel lager? This one, Ryed of the Valkyries by Gathering Place Brewing Company, has a really gorgeous red-amber hue that makes it look incredibly appetizing.
It’s got the warm malty flavor you want out of a dunkel, especially at this time of year. The rye malt adds a bit of extra spice that you wouldn’t find in your standard dunkels, increasing the complexity of flavor. Here’s how the brewery describes it:
“A spicy pumpernickel bread flavor from the addition of three types of malted rye complemented by a floral and slight cucumber hop aroma. Single hopped with Pekko, a new dwarf varietal, creates a clean but sensitive bitterness.”
It comes in at a moderate 5.2 percent ABV, so you’re in no danger of getting a little tipsy from drinking a few of these.
Grab em today at the brewery or at your local liquor store! Not sure what Gathering Place’s distribution reach is like, but their stuff should be fairly easy to find in southeast Wisconsin.
Keep an eye on those Bengals
Completely unrelated to the Packers, but keep an eye on those Cincinnati Bengals.
They’ve now defeated the Kansas City Chiefs three times in a single calendar year, something that’s difficult for most teams to accomplish just once. They’ve pulled back from a tough start to the year to an 8-4 record and the lead in their division, and they have a ton of momentum heading into the final portion of the season.
I admit that I discounted them after their slow start; I thought their coaching and offensive line would hold them back from being able to repeat last year’s success. But quietly, they’ve come along and suddenly burst onto the scene as a major contender in the AFC, interrupting the narrative that the conference is Buffalo’s or Kansas City’s to lose. Especially after the Dolphins’ loss to the 49ers, the Bengals suddenly appear to be the hottest team in the conference.
The Bengals entered the playoffs last year as a dark horse. They very well could arrive this year as a primary contender.
Christian Watson: Offensive Rookie of the Year?
Last week I briefly talked about how Christian Watson looked like a potential star in the making.
This past weekend he added another two touchdowns to his recent run of excellence, bringing him up to eight touchdowns in four games. This puts him among an elite list of performers who have ever accomplished such a feat.
It’s hard to believe, but after missing most of the first half of the season, Watson has a legitimate chance to win the Offensive Rookie of the Year award. His skills have been on full display in recent weeks. He’s showing off a full route tree in addition to his blazing speed. The way he outran a very fast defensive back who had an angle on him in his jet sweep the other day was pretty incredible and the kind of play that we haven’t seen out of Packers skill position players very often.
It’s becoming clear that the Packers have found a very special talent in Watson. If he’s able to keep improving and building on the skills he’s already shown, he could become an elite playmaker in this league.
The possibility of him and Doubs both being around for quite some time is very exciting, especially if we’ve only seen their floors so far. The Packers could go from having a dire need for receivers to potentially having a top-3 receiving tandem in the league within a few years after finding both of these guys in the same draft.
Just goes to show that you don’t need to take receivers in the first round to find stars. Packer fans should have known this already given the team’s history of finding outstanding receivers in the second round and later, but this is just another nice reminder.
Around the NFC North
Once again we’ll take a quick look around the NFC North at what the Packers’ rivals are doing.
- The CHICAGO BEARS still cannot beat the Green Bay Packers. The Packers have never lost to the Bears in the LaFleur era, and seemingly in my lifetime. This sad-sack franchise of losers continues to let leads slip out of their grasp even when the Packers have their worst team in more than a decade and a half. With Jay Cutler in the house watching, Justin Fields threw a pair of backbreaking fourth quarter interceptions to hand Green Bay the game. You gotta love it.
- The DETROIT LIONS are on a roll. At 5-7, they’re now peeking into the playoff race, and have a chance to make some noise by taking down the Vikings at home this weekend. This might be the first time I can remember a 5-win team being favored over a 10-win team, but here we are. This is a team that plays with grit and fight and, while they are certainly not contenders, just feel like a team that COULD pull off an upset over anyone at any moment. And thanks to the Rams’ tough go of it this season, they’re going to have great draft position no matter how many games they themselves win the rest of the year.
- The MINNESOTA VIKINGS continue to eke out close victories. I’m hearing a lot of people say that their style of play isn’t sustainable, but that’s what people said about the 2019 Green Bay Packers, who made it a game away from a Super Bowl. In a weak NFC, the Vikings are still somehow being overlooked, as the assumption is it’ll be Philadelphia (or maybe Dallas) representing the conference in February. But I wouldn’t rule Minnesota out. Surely they will, at some point, collapse hilariously, because they’re still the Vikings. I’m just saying that collapse could happen quite a bit later than usual this year.
Let the Jim Leonhard rumors begin
This week, Wisconsin Badgers defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard announced he would not be returning to the team in 2023, despite recent rumors that he would hold the same job under new head coach Luke Fickell.
Packer fans have been thirsting after this guy since right before the Joe Barry hire, so of course, people jumped on that right away and started preparing to roll out the proverbial red carpet for him in Green Bay.
However, there’s no guarantee he will even want to come to the Packers. Remember: he turned the job down once, and that was when the team was looking like it was in a much better position with its personnel and potential than it is now. Plus, Leonhard has drawn interest as a head coach in the college football world. Being a head coach in college could be more attractive to him than being a coordinator in the NFL.
Finally, there’s the little fact that the defensive coordinator is just about always the scapegoat in Green Bay. I’m not saying that’s without good reason all the time, but there’s no denying fans are very quick to call for the coordinator’s firing, and that the job seems to be a bit cursed. The pressure of stepping into a place like Green Bay as the coordinator could be immense.
All that being said, if Leonhard were to step into Green Bay and transform its defense, he would immediately be a god among the team’s fans, and he could even potentially set himself up for being head coach of an NFL franchise.
I imagine we’re going to continue having this discussion until Leonhard has a job somewhere else this offseason. Leonhard will certainly have his pick of places to go, college or NFL.
It’s the bye week!
There is, mercifully, no game for the Packers this weekend. But here are my picks for the rest of the week’s action!
WEEK 14 PICKS
RAIDERS over Rams
LIONS over Vikings
STEELERS over Ravens
BENGALS over Browns
BILLS over Jets
COWBOYS over Texans
EAGLES over Giants
TITANS over Jaguars
CHIEFS over Broncos
SEAHAWKS over Panthers
BUCS over 49ers
DOLPHINS over Chargers
PATRIOTS over Cardinals
LAST WEEK: 10-5
SEASON TOTAL: 113-82
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Tim Backes is a lifelong Packer fan and a contributor to CheeseheadTV. Follow him on Twitter @timbackes for his Packer takes, random musings and Untappd beer check-ins.