The Chicago Bears are focused on their own problems. There are plenty to go around. Mike Glennon become the first one in eight years to accept the challenge of fixing the teams' quarterback woes. Prince Amukamara and Marcus Cooper arrive to bolster a badly depleted secondary. Markus Wheaton and Kendall Wright hope to fill in for the loss of Alshon Jeffery.
These aren't bad moves, but they also aren't ones that are going to pull the Bears out of the quicksand they've been in the past few years. That will come in the NFL draft next month. GM Ryan Pace knows he has to shine there. He also knows 2017 must be one of progress in the win column or his job is going to be called into question next year.
At the end of the day he can only control what he can control. Then again it's always nice to get some help from elsewhere. Specifically the possible decline of another team in the division. Nobody has really taken notice of it, but that seems to be happening with the Green Bay Packers.
As long as the Packers have Aaron Rodgers, they're going to be playoff contenders. That's just the luxury a franchise quarterback brings. It was the same for Brett Favre as well. However, there is a marked difference between playoff contenders and Super Bowl contenders. Green Bay fans have started to get anxious, knowing this team should've won another title by now.
Instead it's been an ongoing string of painful postseason defeats. In 2011 they went 15-1 but lost the playoff opener at Lambeau to the 9-7 New York Giants. Then in 2014 they had a 19-7 lead in the NFC championship in the fourth quarter against Seattle. The Seahawks then stormed back to win 28-22 in overtime. Finally came last year when they were thoroughly humiliated by the Falcons 44-21 in Atlanta.
It just feels like Rodgers has covered up the steady decline of the Packers roster with his own Hall of Fame play. The team was 4-6 at one point last year before he led them on a late run. Now one must merely see the players they've lost in free agency the past week to believe they might be in trouble.
GM Ted Thompson is highly respected around the NFL but his aversion to free agency spending seems to have kept his team in a perpetual state of good-but-not-good-enough. Most agree that without Aaron Rodgers this team likely wouldn't be much better than 8-8 each year. If that. On that list they just lost their best offensive guard, best running back, three members of their starting defense and an underrated center. [video width="1280" height="720" mp4="https://www.sportsmockery.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2017-Free-Agents-Julius-Peppers-highlights-Feb-24-2017.mp4"][/video] Green Bay did add Martellus Bennett as a free agent, but it's doubtful he covers up all the potential damage done by these losses.Though the Packers remain the standard in the NFC North, it's hard not to feel a pang of hope. A feeling that Zeus has fallen a little closer to Earth after sitting on his throne for eons. The time might never be better to finally knock them out of the playoff picture. A first since 2008.
