Bears’ D sent Packing

The Bears and Green Bay met Sunday for the fourth time in 364 days.

So, yes, you might say these rivals have more than a rudimentary understanding of each other’s schemes.

“They know what we do,” said Bears cornerback Tim Jennings. “It’s not hard to figure us out.”

“They know our defense,” said middle linebacker Brian Urlacher.

Fair enough.

But in addition to breeding contempt, shouldn’t such familiarity enable the Bears to concoct a plan worthy of slowing down Aaron Rodgers and his all-star cast?

On the first four plays from scrimmage of the Packers’ 27-17 victory at Soldier Field, Green Bay gained 13, 12, 19 and 11 yards on its way to a touchdown.

After the Bears made some adjustments — such as ditching strong-side linebacker Nick Roach in favor of nickel back D.J. Moore to combat the three-wideout alignments — the Packers needed time to resume their surgical precision.

With the score 17-10 early in the third quarter, the Packers reeled off consecutive snaps for 14, 16, 11 and 10 yards. How could this be?

“Man, they got a lot of good players,” Moore said. “They’re really good. I ain’t going to say ‘tip your cap,’ but they’re good. If you make mistakes or don’t play to the ability that we can play, it’s going to be a long day.

“Poor gaps. Tackling. It was just simple stuff that you would always do.”

The Packers finished with 392 total yards and owned the ball for more than 37 minutes.

That’s the sign of a team that not only takes advantage of mistakes, but finds ways to position its players for mismatches.

Take 6-foot-5, 247-pound tight end Jermichael Finley, who snagged touchdown passes in the first, second and fourth quarters.

On his first score, he lined up wide left against safety Brandon Meriweather at the Bears’ 6 and beat him inside for a catch in the back of the end zone.

On his second score, he wriggled free of Lance Briggs’ coverage on the goal line and reached behind for a 7-yard score.

Then, finally, Finley lined up wide right with Jennings in front of him. Jennings released Finley into the end zone as part of the Cover-2, but safety Craig Steltz didn’t race over in time to break up the 10-yard scoring pass.

“They do a good job of finding mismatches,” said Steltz, who made his first start since 2009 as Major Wright and Chris Harris were on the inactive list. “They do shifts and motions and they try to play mismatches within their offense.”

While the highlight reels will fixate on Finley’s 3 touchdowns and wide receiver Greg Jennings’ 9 catches, don’t forget Ryan Grant’s 17 rushes for 92 yards.

How many times did Grant start to the right before cutting back into the middle for big yardage? Almost every time, Urlacher appeared to be sealed from making the play.

“We just didn’t get off blocks,” Urlacher said.

“There’s a reason we didn’t play well: Because they made us look the way we did today. That’s just the way it is.”