Paul Bretl | 1/1/2025
GREEN BAY, Wis. — The Packers run defense will look for redemption this time around when they face the Chicago Bears in Week 18.
The last time these two teams met in Week 11, Caleb Williams and the Chicago ground game ran wild against this Green Bay defense. The Bears finished that game totaling 179 yards on the ground at 5.3 yards per rush. D’Andre Swift was responsible for 71 of those yards, with 39 coming from one touchdown run. However, Chicago’s most efficient ball carrier was quarterback Caleb Williams, who tallied 70 yards on the ground at 7.8 yards per rush attempt.
“You look at the tape, and it wasn’t our best,” said Jeff Hafley a few days after the first matchup. “We did some really good things and then we had opportunities to finish some plays, we had opportunities to kinda put the game away here and there, and we were just right there and we just didn’t get the job done, so when you look at the film – win or lose, fortunately we were winning this game – you look hard, you make the corrections.”
Some of that damage was done by Williams going off-script and leaving the pocket when there wasn’t anywhere to go with the ball in the passing game. But there were other instances where it was designed runs with Williams that hurt the Packers–something that Chicago hadn’t put on tape much under previous offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, and that admittedly caught the Green Bay defense off guard.
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The trickle-down effect of an offense having a strong run game to lean on is that it oftentimes keeps them ahead of the sticks and in short down-and-distance situations. This can then help create opportunities in the passing game and manageable third downs, and it’s those conversions that lead to long drives.
The Bears in this previous matchup were a very effective 12-for-19 on third and fourth downs and converted 23 first downs in total. As a result, they then held the ball for nearly 13 more minutes than the Packers, with the Chicago offense running 25 more plays than what Green Bay did. Williams, meanwhile, was an efficient 23-of-31 passing at 7.5 yards per attempt–both figures well-above his season average in each category.
“It comes down in that game we did a really poor job setting edges,” said Hafley on Thursday. “I mean, the ball got out on us on the perimeter in that game and we gave up the big score and we gave up some perimeter runs in that game and even on screens we were ducking inside.”
This performance by the Packers’ run defense in Chicago, however, has largely been the outlier for Green Bay. For the most part this season, the Packers have been quite stout against the run. The 4.0 yards per carry that the Packers are giving up is the fifth-lowest mark in the NFL. According to ESPN’s run stop rate metric, the Packers rank seventh entering Week 18.
Since the bye week, this includes facing several dynamic rushing attacks, including Christian McCaffrey in San Francisco, De’Von Achane with Miami, the one-two punch in Detroit with David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs, and most recently, Minnesota’s Aaron Jones.
“Allowing us not to play blocks and just to use our God given athletic ability to get off of blocks and get separation to make those plays,” Karl Brooks said of the run defense. “I would just say it’s credit to the scheme and how we were taught.”
Success for any run defense starts with the interior defensive line and that unit’s ability to generate a steady push, take up space, and occupy blockers. But for a defense to consistently operate at a high level against the run as the Packers have, it truly takes all 11 defenders.
Along with the interior defensive line, the defensive ends need to set strong edges to prevent ball carriers from getting outside. The linebackers need to fill gaps, shed blocks, and get sideline-to-sideline to prevent ball carriers from getting upfield. And for the defensive backs, it’s up to them to swarm to the running back to get as many defenders near the ball to help limit yards after contact or the damage from any missed tackles forced.
“It’s just complementary football from all three levels,” said JJ Enagbare of the run defense. “The D-tackles, D-line, linebackers able to flow to over top and then the DBs able to make the open-field tackles when it comes to them, so it was pretty much just all 11 playing together and playing with each other.”
The last time the Packers played the Bears, there was a bit of unknown that favored Chicago. This was the first game where they had made a change at offensive coordinator, moving on from Waldron and promoting Thomas Brown–who is now the interim head coach–to that role. And while in the middle of the season, there aren’t going to be any drastic changes to the playbook, how Brown calls the game in certain situations, or perhaps leaning more heavily into different concepts than what Waldron did helped create the element of surprise to a degree, as we saw with Williams’ usage in the run game.
However, that was now seven weeks ago. Who this Bears’ offense is under Brown is fairly well documented at this point through the film that’s out there over that stretch of games.
“Last time when we played them they just made the coordinator change so it was kind of going in blind a little bit and after playing them and seeing them more on tape, I think we have a little bit better feel over what we’re going to get but we need to go out and execute,” Hafley said.
The focus at this time for the Packers is on the Bears and cleaning up the mistakes from what Matt LaFleur called a “sloppy” performance against the Vikings. Regardless of what seed in the NFC playoff race the Packers get, it’s going to be a tough road ahead. Being able to re-establish the momentum they had previously built will be important heading into the postseason.
“Those are mistakes that we can’t be making going forward,” said Hafley about the defense’s performance in Minnesota. “So I gotta coach it better and then we gotta go execute it better and it’s almost like that Bears game where we gotta reset and do those little things right.
“We were just watching the film in there, but that’s the stuff that I watched in practice today that was awesome to see. We made a big deal and we emphasized it, and it’s the details like that that are more important that anything that I can call.”
From the defensive perspective for the Packers, rebuilding that momentum against the Bears starts with containing the running game and putting Williams and the offense behind the sticks and in predictable passing situations, where the Green Bay pass rush will have to find some needed success against a Chicago offensive line unit that has surrendered one of the higher quarterback pressure rates this season and the most sacks.