The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rodgers takes command in second half to defeat Bears
After an extraordinary second quarter in which the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears exchanged body blows, the NFL’S oldest rivalry returned to normal, with Aaron Rodgers once again delivering a knockout punch.
Rodgers threw for 341 yards and four touchdowns to continue his mastery of the Bears as the Packers won 45-30 on Sunday night in Green Bay, Wis.
The reigning MVP went 29 of 37, throwing two TD passes to Davante Adams and one each to Allen Lazard and Aaron Jones. Rodgers has 61 career touchdown passes against the Bears, the most all-time against Chicago and one more than his predecessor, Brett Favre.
“It does mean a lot to me,” Rodgers said. “It really does. The majority of stats don’t mean much, but this rivalry does mean a lot to me because I’m almost an adult in Green Bay — I’ve lived here for 17 years and started for 14. I know how much this rivalry means to our fans, and to be a part of it has been really special.”
The Packers trailed 27-21 at halftime but scored the first 24 points of the second half.
Green Bay (10-3) took a fourgame lead over the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC North and moved closer to its third straight division title. Chicago (4-9) has lost seven of eight.
“It’s a tale of two halves,” Bears coach Matt Nagy said. “For us to be able to come out that first two quarters and do what we did, that was fun, that’s good football.”
The Packers are 23-5 against the Bears in games Rodgers had started. Rodgers yelled, “I still own you!” to the Soldier Field crowd after his fourth-quarter touchdown run in a 24-14 victory on Oct. 17.
This time, Rodgers played through a broken toe that has limited his practice time over the last month.
“It feels worse,” Rodgers said. “I don’t know what kind of setback I had tonight, but we’ll look at it tomorrow. Definitely took a step back tonight.”
This may be Rodgers’ last opportunity to experience the rivalry with his future in Green Bay uncertain beyond this season. He said he wasn’t thinking about that.
“You guys love bringing up the question of next year and stuff,” said Lazard. “I think in our locker room, especially him, we don’t pay attention to that stuff. We just stay in the moment, stay focused. He’s done a great job, a tremendous job this year, of just being a leader, being resilient and exuding that calmness throughout the entire locker room.”
Chicago led after a wild second quarter that featured a combined 45 points, the fourth time since 1991 that teams have combined to score at least that many points in a quarter.
But the Bears couldn’t keep it up. Spurred by a halftime talk from Preston Smith, the Packers shut down Chicago the rest of the way. The Bears’ only second-half points came on Cairo Santos’ field goal with 1:22 left.
“P just came in yelling at us,” Packers cornerback Rasul Douglas said. “He was just like, ‘That’s (bull).’ We don’t play like that.”