It has finally come and gone. Today the Jordan Love era kicked off it's first regular season. Love became just the third Quarterback in almost thirty years to start a season opener for the Packers. And it was one to remember.

The Packers offense scored on their first drive but then hit a bit of a lull for the remainder of the first half. This was followed up by absolute domination by the Packers pulling the "boo birds" out of the Chicago crowd to finish the game 38-20. It was a little bit of a frustrating nail-biter at first as the Bears offense seemed like it could begin to run away. But the Packers Defense stayed stout throughout the game and contained Fields so that the Offense could find their feet and bring them the W.

Let's get to the recap:

First Quarter:

An unnecessary roughness penalty on the kickoff called against the Bears was fitting to start this longtime rivalry. The Packers Defense started the Bears first drive stealing away the momentum after they stone-walled the Bears on a 3rd and 4th down and short conversion to turn the ball over to Jordan Love in Bears territory with 11:31 left in the first quarter.

Jordan Love's first drive as QB1 was mainly reliant on the legs of Aaron Jones as he received the ball four times. Love's first pass was a big third down conversion pass to Romeo Doubs for 13 yards. Love then found Doubs for the score, throwing a nice strike to the back of the end-zone to put the Packers up 7-0 with 6:08 remaining in the first quarter.

The next drive the Bears were moving the ball pretty well until two false starts pushed them backwards in Packers territory. The very next play Justin Fields took off on a run and Jaire Alexander laid a legal hit on Fields in bounds to knock him out of bounds. Bears players took exception to this hit, though legal and offsetting penalties were called. The Bears were forced to settle for a Field Goal putting the score at 7-3 Packers with 2:04 remaining in the opening quarter.

Unfortunately, the Packers next drive was a bit of a stinker. They went three and out with a punt forced at 0:32 in the first quarter. Little side pitches seemed to just not be working at that point and luckily the Packers seemed to get away from that later on in the game for the most part.

The First Quarter was then finished off with Darnell Savage making a huge tackle for a seven yard loss on Bears running back D'Onta Foreman

Second Quarter:

The Bears were able to recover from that big tackle to end the first. Justin Fields was an escape artist alluding Packers defenders in the backfield and into the secondary. Poor tackling was kind of the tale of the tape on this drive as the Bears were able to drive down to the Packers 8-yard line. The Packers defense rose to the occasion though as rookie first round pick, Lukas Van Ness got his first career sack in his first game roping down Justin Fields for a 7 yard loss. A nice deflection by Rasul Douglas on third down forced the Bears to settle for three again putting the score at 7-6 with 9:00 until Halftime.

The Green Bay offense then went three and out again. This was definitely not ideal with the defense gassed from the previous drive. Jayden Reed was hit right in the numbers on third down but dropped it. Hopefully the rookie learns to attack the ball for the catch from that point forward.

On the following drive the Packers defense was able to overcome the short rest time though, as they forced the Bears to three and out. It was aided by a holding call on the Bears line that essentially killed the drive.

Jordan Love had a shot to redeem the offense taking over at the Packers 31 with 5:27 left in the half. They had a decent drive including a nice Samori Toure catch for a 3rd down conversion but they were forced to punt yet again. The Punt forced Chicago inside their own 10 with a little over two minutes remaining in the half.

A big play by Keisean Nixon blowing through a block attempt for a tackle on a wide receiver screen, and then a near strip of Justin Fields by Rashan Gary stalled Chicago’s drive under two minutes forcing them to punt, returning the ball to Green Bay with just a little over a minute left in the half.

After the defense spoiled Chicago's two minute drive, the Packers followed up with a drive into field goal range starting with 1:12 left in the half. The drive was highlighted by a 30 yard strike to Jayden Reed that got the Offense into kicking range. However, a sack by Yannick Ngakoue stalled the drive. Anders Carlson caps the drive with his first career field goal with a 52-yard kick splitting the uprights to take the game to halftime with the Packers up 10-6.

Third Quarter:

The Packers kicked off the third quarter on offense with another chapter in the Aaron Jones saga. A huge screen play to Jones took the Packers to First and Goal. Three offensive linemen right in front of him plowed the fields 51 yards all the way to Chicago's 7-yard line. After two failed attempts by AJ Dillon to get in the end-zone, on third and goal Jones came back in for the 1 yard touchdown giving the Packers the 17-6 lead with 10:19 left in the third quarter.

When the Bears took over, Devonte Wyatt took over as well. The Bears first drive of the second half was kicked off with a huge sack of Justin Fields for a loss of 11 yards by Wyatt. The drive stalled with a three and out from there and the boo birds began to rain down in Chicago. On fourth down as Chicago punted the ball away, Jayden Reed had a big return for 35 yards before he was knocked out of bounds taking the ball to Chicago’s 42 for Green Bay to start their second drive of the half with 8:05 remaining in the third quarter. 

After a slow start to the drive the Packers elected to go for it on 4th and 3 just to make us nervous. It ended up being an excellent call as Jordan Love hit Aaron Jones for a 35-yard touchdown putting the score at 24-6 with 6:26 left in the third. Aaron Jones came up a little limp after the play, but ended up being fine on the sidelines, telling everybody that he was OK. He just had to make us cringe after a great play to keep us honest.

As the Bears took over on the following drive, Kenny Clark stripped the ball from Justin Fields as he tried to scramble on 3rd and 3. Rasul Douglas recovered giving the Packers the ball back at the Chicago 18. After an unnecessary roughness penalty however, on DeVondre Campbell for pulling a player off the pile, the Packers took over at the Bears 43 yard line with 4:58 to go in the third.

Unfortunately the Offense wasn’t able to do anything with the ball after this turnover and were forced to punt with 3:22 left in the third.

Justin Fields showed some good poise recovering from that fumble, as the Bears followed up by driving down the field mainly through the air ending it with a 20 yard connection Fields to Darnell Mooney for the touchdown. They converted the two point attempt putting the score at 24-14 with 0:59 seconds left in the third.  

Fourth Quarter:

The Packers started off the 4th quarter on Offense showing the Bears that they would not let them back in the game. A huge third down conversion on a strike from Jordan Love to Jayden Reed for 18 yards kept the drive moving forward. Then, in his first game as the sure starter, Jordan Love decided to remind us a bit of Brett Favre playing backyard football after he fumbled the snap, regained his composure, and threw a huge pass to a wide open Luke Musgrave for 37 yards. Musgrave would’ve had a touch down if it weren’t for him stumbling over just before the endzone at the Chicago 4. Love then connected with Doubs for the touchdown take the score to 31-14 Packers with 13:30 remaining in regulation.

The Bears then did nothing but shoot themselves in the foot as on 3rd down Justin Fields threw an interception to Quay Walker. Walker broke several tackles, taking the ball all the way to the end zone for the pick six. The Packers at this point have almost run away with the game putting the score at 38-14 with 12:36 remaining.

The Bears couldn’t respond at all on the following drive after the interception and just seemed shell-shocked as Karl Brooks collected his first career sack on Justin Fields on 3rd down with about 10:40 remaining in the fourth quarter to force a punt.

It was at that point that the AJ Dillon show began as the Packers were content to run the clock down some before they punted with 6:28 left in the game.

Using garbage time as their ally, the Bears were able to finally muster some offense in the fourth quarter and drive down into the red-zone. They were able to score on a Roschon Johnson 2 yard run. After the TD the Bears attempted a 2-pt conversion but we’re called for a false start backing them up before eventually failing the conversion. Although the game seemed out of reach at 38-20 with 2:54 remaining, the Bears still attempted an onside kick, but it failed, as it was covered up by Jayden Reed.

Jordan Love was then generous enough to let his back up, Sean Clifford have a few snaps to wind down the game. Why not? Let him enjoy his first victory in the NFL with a few snaps. Clifford though had a fumbled snap just to keep us honest leading to the 2 minute warning. The Packers kept the ball luckily continuing to wind the clock a bit, but decided to give the Bears the ball back one more time after failing a fourth down conversion in Bears territory with 1:03 left in the game. Unfortunately no Field Goal to run the score up a little bit, I guess Coach LaFleur decided the Bears had had enough.

The Bears, then wound down a few garbage time offensive plays to finish the game giving the Packers the 38-20 victory to kick off the season 1-0.

Offensive Player of the Game:

The Packers best offensive player in this game was Aaron Jones. I wanted to give this to Jordan Love with his 15/27 245 yard, 3 touchdown day, but Jones really lead this offense when he was on the field. Jones had 9 carries for 41 yards and a TD on the ground, then lead the team in receiving yards with 2 catches for 86 yards and a touchdown. Jones truly is the heart and soul of this team and when he has the ball, the team responds.

Defensive Player of the Game:

This was a tough one. Especially with rookies grabbing their first career sacks, others being very disruptive, but I'm going to give it to Quay Walker. After an offseason of scrutiny when his rookie season ended in his second ejection of the season, Quay Walker responded. He had the huge pick-six that basically sealed the game and I couldn't be happier for him to get that type of redemption to kick off his second season. 

What Went Right:

My biggest take away here is Jordan Love's composure. He had some rough luck in the first half where the offense couldn't seem to get anything going after their first score, but it didn't seem like Love was bugged at all by this. He held it together and pulled off the big win. 

The defense also deserves a lot of credit. They were getting diced by Justin Fields early. But they held firm, got a lot of pressure on Fields and seemed to frustrate the Bears offense into getting no where in the second half.

Rookies. It hasn't been often that the Packers rookies show up big on the stat sheet. Lukas Van Ness and Karl Brooks got their first career sacks in their first game. Luke Musgrave caught 3 targets for 50 yards, and Jayden Reed caught 2 targets for 48. It's good to see the youth starting on a good foot, we will need them this season.

What Went Wrong:

Penalties. The Packers had a total of 9 penalties for 90 yards. Several of these were personal fouls. Perhaps chalk it up to being a huge rivalry game, but the team needs to be cleaner in the future before it costs them dearly.

Get. Aaron. Jones. The ball. Early on in this game the Packers were lucky to still be in it after a few drives. They started out giving the ball to Jones often and they scored a touchdown. After that in the first half, Jones barely touched the ball and the offense went no where. Matt LaFleur admitted this fault at halftime and they learned from that in the second half. Aaron Jones is the best offensive weapon the Packers have. Feed him.

Next week the Packers take on the Atlanta Falcons at Mercedes-Benz stadium in Atlanta. Unfortunately, no home-cooking for the team until Week 3. With Atlanta also fielding a very young offense, in a way, it's almost like looking into a mirror. The Falcons got a big win today over Carolina and are out to prove that they as well are for real. It should be a good match-up that hopefully the Packers will rise to the challenge on the road once again. Go Pack Go.