Packers' Mike Pettine Firing a Potential Win for Bears

Pettine's defenses had controlled games against Matt Nagy's Bears teams and were at least as important as Aaron Rodgers.

It might have been the best news the Bears could get coming out of Green Bay short of Aaron Rodgers being traded or cut.

The decision by the Green Bay Packers to part ways with defensive coordinator Mike Pettine removed one of the big problems the Bears have had in the NFC North over the last three seasons.

While Rodgers gets all the credit for beating the Bears five of the last six games, it was Pettine's defense which made a huge difference in each of the five Packers wins since Matt Nagy became coach in Chicago.

In fact, if this decision not to extend a contract to Pettine occurred a week and a half ago, it wouldn't have been a surprise if Pettine wound up being the new Bears defensive coordinator. Nagy always had great respect for Pettine's defenses, going back to before he was in Green Bay and was in Cleveland as head coach or the Jets as a defensive coordinator.

"I think I've made it clear the last couple of years the amount of respect I have for coach Pettine and the way he teaches," Nagy said before the regular-season finale. "He's been doing it for a long time and his philosophy on defense, just knowing that and seeing that, I just think schematically he really does a good job at disguising different things and showing different fronts and stunts."

Under Pettine, the Packers defense held the Bears to 17.3 points a game. They rushed for only 101 yards a game against his defenses and the Packers forced 11 turnovers in those six games.

In 2019, the Bears managed only 16 total points in two games, 10-3 and 21-13 losses.

In 2020 the Packers offense played a bigger part with 41-25 and 35-16 wins. Still, it was the defense coming through with key plays.

In the first loss at Green Bay, a strip sack of Mitchell Trubisky resulted in a touchdown to turn the game into a rout by halftime. In the second game, Green Bay got a fourth-and-1 stop at their 24-yard line four minutes into the fourth quarter with the Bears trailing 21-16, then came up with an interception by former Bears safety Adrian Amos.

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