Six. That is how many defensive starters the Chicago Bears will be down on Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers. All three linebackers are out. Dayo Odeyingbo tore his Achilles a few weeks ago. Now it's been revealed that Jaylon Johnson and Kyler Gordon won't be activated. That means the Bears will face Aaron Rodgers, their long-standing boogeyman, with a defense held together by glue and duct tape. It's a reasonable assumption that group won't be able to do much trying to stop the future Hall of Famer.
That means it falls on the Bears' offense to win the game.
This is rather fitting, in a dark and twisted sort of way. People always credit Rodgers with owning the Bears during his legendary career in Green Bay. Not enough of them bother to realize this forgotten fact. Rodgers faced Chicago 29 times in his career. Care to know how many of those games saw the Bears score 21 or more points? Eight. In other words, they scored 20 or fewer in 21 of those games. It's easy to own another team when they can't score.
It seems appropriate that Chicago would need to make it nine times to have any prayer of finally slaying the Rodgers demon.
Aaron Rodgers is no longer invincible.
He's still good, but the quarterback is clearly a shadow of his MVP form from five years ago. His last three games have been mostly average. Even if the Bears don't have the bodies to get stops, they can still find ways to frustrate him. Pittsburgh has not scored more than 34 points this season, even against defenses as atrocious as Cincinnati's. That means 35 points should be the number the Bears aim for in this game.
Is that possible? Pittsburgh has allowed 30 or more points in a game four times this season. They aren't the Steel Curtain of years past. Head coach Ben Johnson should see weaknesses on tape that he can exploit. Pittsburgh is 32nd against the pass this year. Maybe it could be Caleb Williams finally having his big moment, and against his childhood idol, no less. If the Bears do take down Aaron Rodgers, it had to happen this way.
