What We Learned Against the Bears

Written by Mike Davidsen Thursday, 29 September 2011 09:47

The Packers are not ready to make a change at starting running back. 

If someone had said before the Bears game that one Packers running back would rush 17 times for 92 yards and the other would rush for 5 yards on 11 carries, I think just about every Packer fan would have predicted the dog performance to be Grant's. Friends, welcome to running back by committee in Green Bay - at least for the time being. 

Charlie Peprah really is just a stopgap. 

Playing alongside Nick Collins disguised Peprah's mediocrity last season; the true football player comes out when teamed up with emerging yet raw Morgan Burnett. I will credit Peprah for being one of the better tacklers in the Green Bay secondary. Just know that he's prone to being exposed this time around. 

It's going to be hard for teams to stop Jermichael Finley in the red zone. 

Giving up three touchdowns to No.88 doesn't mean the Bears just didn't pay enough attention to him. Rather, Chicago simply couldn't stop Finley, who recorded 85 yards to go along with his three scores. I foresee the rest of the league having similar issues with the big man this season. 

Marshall Newhouse is more gameday-ready than we thought. 

The second-year hybrid offensive lineman more than held his own after making coaches slightly nervous in preseason play. It remains to be seen if Newhouse can continue that type of success against a mixture of defensive fronts, but there's not much to dislike about what we saw in Chicago. 

The Packers finally have a true return man. 

I held my breath on Cobb after seeing Jordy Nelson look like a star return man at the beginning of 2010 and then wilt. Okay, no I didn't - we saw Cobb's success on special teams coming from a mile away. You can tell just by watching that Cobb has natural return man instinct; I'm looking for Cobb to finish the season with three-plus return touchdowns.