The Green Bay Packers spent the offseason looking like a team content to stand still, and that’s exactly the kind of move Chicago would love to see.
For the Bears, the bigger picture is simple: they got better, and the Packers mostly did not. That alone changes the temperature of this rivalry, especially after Chicago already showed it could expose Green Bay’s weak spots in the Wild Card round. If the Packers were hoping to answer that loss with meaningful upgrades, the moves they made suggest otherwise.
The biggest problem starts up front on defense. Micah Parsons is out for at least the first six weeks of the regular season, which means he’ll miss the first meeting between these two teams.
Even with that known ahead of time, Green Bay still didn’t make a real push to strengthen its pass rush. The team can point to Javon Hargrave and Dani Dennis-Sutton, but Hargrave is an aging veteran near the end of the road, and Dennis-Sutton is a mid-round rookie who may not contribute this season at all.
The Packers also got thinner at receiver. Romeo Doubs and Dontayvion Wicks are gone, and instead of adding more reliable help, Green Bay gave the always-injured Christian Watson a multi-year extension. The same kind of bet is apparently coming for Tucker Kraft, who is coming off a season-ending injury.
There are more holes, too. Brandon Cisse is in line to help at cornerback, but he’s a second-round pick and only listed as a starter because Carrington Valentine has been banged up.
Up front, the Packers let Elgton Jenkins leave in free agency and replaced him with Sean Rhyan, who got mixed reviews last season when he filled in because of injury. Rasheed Walker’s departure is also unlikely to bring back a compensatory pick, and the interior offensive line figures to be unsettled with Aaron Banks and Jacob Monk in the mix.
That’s the part that should have Bears fans smiling. Green Bay had a chance to respond after the matchup that exposed them in the postseason, and instead it looks like they chose the same formula - or something even thinner. Meanwhile, Chicago is on the rise, and after spending so many years in the Packers’ shadow, the balance of power suddenly looks ready to tilt again.
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Bears Defensive Depth Chart Is Getting Mocked For One Big Reason
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But the part getting the most attention is how little room the chart seems to give Jordan van den Berg, even though the Bears are expected to lean on him in a meaningful way. It is the kind of early-season wrinkle that can make a depth chart look more like a formality than a true roadmap, and it leaves plenty of curiosity about how Chicago actually plans to deploy its defense once the games start counting. [Read more 🡒]