Three takeaways from the Packers' lackluster win over the Bears

Thomas Lott

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Three takeaways from the Packers' lackluster win over the Bears image

The Packers have started the season 1-0, but this is the definition of "winning ugly."

Green Bay defeated the Bears 10-3 in the NFL's season opener on Thursday, but Mitchell Trubisky did all he could to help out the Packers going 26-of-45 passing for 228 yards with no touchdowns and one awful red zone interception. He also took a sack inside his own 5-yard line to effectively end the game.

It was hard to tell if these two defenses were playing really well or if the offenses were just inept. Honestly though, watching this game, we're pretty certain it was the latter. 

Here are three takeaways from a boring season opener in the NFL.

Three takeaways from the Packers' lackluster win over the Bears

Maybe the preseason isn't totally useless?

Basically no star players played this preseason. Aaron Rodgers didn't play a snap, neither did Philip Rivers, Antonio Brown didn't sniff the field and Ezekiel Elliott was in Cabo. The story became about how pointless those four games before the year are and how dangerous they can be as well, as guys like Lamar Miller of the Texans saw their season end due to injury in a meaningless game.

But this Bears-Packers game was not a great case study for why the preseason is pointless. Trubisky looked out of rhythm and just plain awful throughout this game. He threw a total of zero passes this preseason. Rodgers went 2 of 5 for five yards and led the Packers to negative-12 yards in the first quarter. He put together a good drive to start the second quarter, but looked out of rhythm as well in a new offense.

In today's NFL, players aren't getting reps in the preseason, their practice time is now shorter and offenses are changing all the time. That often results in terrible football to start the year. The preseason needs to be cut from four games to two, but saying it's completely useless is hard to support after watching this game.

People forgot Chuck Pagano can produce a good defense

Let's be clear, this Bears defense is still a product of former Chicago coordinator Vic Fangio. The players are his, the scheme is more or less his and the spirit of the D is his.

But Chuck Pagano is no slouch in calling defenses. He has taken over the Chicago D and it didn't miss a beat in the season opener. Some of that, of course, had to do with a new offense in Green Bay, but the Bears very much look like they did last year pressuring the quarterback and flying around the football.

Pagano catches a lot of flack for his time in Indianapolis. The defense wasn't good when he was there and he is a defensive guy. But don't forget he was in Baltimore for years and developed defenses in his time there even though he only spent one year as the coordinator.

Pagano was hamstrung in his time with the Colts by poor draft classes and bad free agent pickups by Ryan Grigson. The fact is the man can run a defense, and if Thursday is any indication, he is more than capable of keeping the status quo in Chicago if anyone was worried that he couldn't.

Holding will be a bigger issue than the new pass interference rule

Fox rules analyst Mike Pereira warned us before the season: the new holding rules will be something to worry about this season. The NFL has put an emphasis on the play now, making sure to penalize them even if they happen behind the play and have little to no effect on the yards gained or lost.

"The number of holding calls in the preseason, so far, is off the charts," Pereira told Omnisport last week.

He continued: "It's not that they're calling penalties and they're not fouls, they are, but they don't really have a great effect on the play. And that's going to be — if you talk about holding penalties — they're averaging about three, three and a half per game traditionally, and now in the preseason we're seeing like eight per game."

The Bears were called for 12 holding penalties all of last season. They were called for four by the early fourth quarter Thursday. This is going to have a bigger effect on the NFL this season than the new pass interference rules.

Thomas Lott