Bears Focused on Rodgers — and Respect

On Sunday, the Bears defense will try to do what no team has done yet this year -- pick off Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

"He’s playing lights out football," linebacker Lance Briggs said. "He’s getting the ball to everyone he needs to get it to. And he’s doing it without any interceptions and not many incompletions."

"He’s just smart. The thing is, he doesn’t get pressure a whole lot either, they’re protecting him well, and when you blitz him they make you pay for it," linebacker Brian Urlacher said.

Rodgers has just four interceptions over his last 14 games, and is ranked second in the NFL with a 126.4 passer rating. The Bears will try to frustrate him with their cover 2 defense.

"We got to keep him contained, keep him in the pocket and make the pocket collapse on him and make some errant throws," safety Chris Harris said.

In their recent history, the Bears have managed to get under the Packers skin, keeping the games to a touchdown or less the last five games. There's only been three blowouts with Lovie Smith at the helm, and two of them went the Bears' way.

The last time the Bears hosted the Packers was the NFC Championship game at Soldier Field and it was the Bears that were sent packing while the Packers went on to win the Super Bowl.

"It's frustrating. You get almost to your goal and then you don’t accomplish it," Urlacher says. "Congrats to them, they got it done, we didn’t"

Despite the Bears impressive run last season, the team still didn't get a lot of respect and Jay Cutler's toughness was questioned.

And the team also feels they aren't getting the respect they deserve from the FOX broadcast team calling their games, who according to the Chicago Tribune,ran fake headlines about Cutler during the game. By the way, it'll be Troy Aikman and Joe Buck in the booth again on Sunday.

"When people talk about us, we just want them to be fair and honest when they report what's going on with our team and with our players," head coach Lovie Smith said this week. "That’s not asking too much is it?"

But as we've all seen, respect will come with a win -- or sometimes not.

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