Green Bay Packers: Why they won

Sep 13, 2015; Chicago, IL, USA; Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (12) passes the ball during the second quarter against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field. Mandatory Credit: Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports

Rodgers in peak form

It didn’t take long for Aaron Rodgers to again show us his masterful abilities.

In this game, he had a performance which may appear to be kind of ho-hum by his standards: 18/23, 189 yards, 3 TDs. Don’t worry about the seemingly low yardage totals, it speaks to easily explainable factors.

There were not a large assortment of opportunities to rack up yardage. The team only had 7 drives (9 total, but 2 were kneel-downs to end halves), and they scored on 5 of them (4 TDs, 1 FG). Efficiency like this doesn’t make for good yardage totals, but it works wonders for winning games.

To further that point, Rodgers had a QBR* of 94.4; the only player with a higher rating this week was Marcus Mariota in his insane debut versus the pitiful defensive unit being sported by Tampa Bay.

It wasn’t only simple efficient passing, however. Rodgers also managed to go 5/6 on passes of 10-plus yards, meaning he wasn’t just dink-and-dunking his way down the field.

The stat lines will undoubtedly be better in other games, but what Rodgers did was more than enough to lead the Packers to a victory.

*Total Quarterback Rating is a statistical measure that incorporates the contexts and details of those throws and what they mean for wins. It’s built from the team level down to the quarterback, where we understand first what each play means to the team, then give credit to the quarterback for what happened on that play based on what he contributed. The rating goes from 0-100 (higher is better); 50 is average, 60 is above average, 70 is Pro-Bowl level, 80 is MVP-level.

Next: Jones' return