‘We’ve got to be better than this’

GREEN BAY – After the night morphed from a potential blowout into needing a goal-line stand to prevent the 78,350 Lambeau Field faithful from wondering if their Packers would become yet another Week 2 comeback victim on a wild Sunday of NFL football, Aaron Rodgers said what everyone was thinking.

“We’ve got a big one next week, a tough road trip,” the four-time MVP quarterback noted, referring to next week’s matchup with Tom Brady and the 2-0 Buccaneers. “This was better than Week 1, but we’ve got to be better than this if we want to compete with Tampa.”

Rodgers was referring in part to his own play, and in part to a pair of inexcusable mistakes that didn’t allow the Packers to put away the Bears as soon as they should have.

Rodgers threw only six incompletions, but two early on really annoyed him. He felt he had Allen Lazard for an 18-yard touchdown strike on the game’s opening drive, but his pass needed to be just a touch higher and further outside. He also fired one badly at AJ Dillon‘s ankles in the flat, though the offense still scored its first touchdown on that drive.

The more glaring mistakes came in the third quarter, first when Rodgers and Dillon botched a handoff exchange, for which the QB took the blame. Up 24-7, the Packers had a first down at the Chicago 28-yard line and stumbled just as they wound up for a knockout punch.

Then on their next drive, second-year center Josh Myers fired a shotgun snap on one instead of two, and it hit rookie receiver Christian Watson going in motion. Fortunately Dillon recovered to bouncing ball, but the play lost 13 yards and another chance to extend the lead was wasted.

The miscues marred what was otherwise a statistically overwhelming performance by the Packers in total yards (414-228), first downs (26-11), third-down conversions (5-1) and time of possession (37:15 to 22:45).