It may not have been completely perfect, but there's a TON to be excited about in the wake of the big win against the Bears. Obviously there were two major take aways: 1) Rodgers won a game late, that's huge for his confidence and the team's. 2) our new 3-4 D looks positively ferocious. 4 picks for Cutler and 55 yards for Forte is outstanding. Certainly, the game could have been worse for the Bears. Tramon dropped two easy ones, Rodgers deep ball was off early, our WRs dropped a few throughout, and the call on Harris was garbage.

The one obvious problem was the play of Barbre.

But that one problem aside, what really excites me about this Packer team is despite all the many good things we saw against the Bears, there are plenty more good things that we have yet to see (though we undoubtedly will).

*BJ Raji - I predict this guy will be a force. And as good as our D-line looked, it will only get better with Raji.
*Jermichael Finley - We know this guy can dominate, it seems like it's only a matter of when.
*James Jones & Jordy Nelson - We have two young/solid WRs in Nelson and Jones and certainly we haven't seen either achieve their full potential yet.
*Aaron Rodgers - 184 yards/1 TD...those are minimal numbers for Rodgers, and I expect more 3 and 4 TD performances in the weeks ahead.
*Swagger - you heard it again and again in the postgame, and swagger has a lot to do with momentum. We already seem to be a very confident team, but I expect that confidence to grow even more in the weeks ahead.

Go Pack!!

I like the fact that the Pack gets 2 weeks of relatively weak teams to allow them to ease into the new season now that we got past Chicago. Cincy might not be 'weak' exactly, but there's no way they should beat the Pack at home.

I'm excited to see Clay Matthews and B. J. Raji on the field at the same time. They are the future of Green Bay defense and they are both outstanding players who are ready to contribute early. They used Matthews extensively against the Bears (more than I expected them to). It's only a matter of time before he's starting and tearing things up. He was all over the field and playing well in all 3 phases of LB play. That's what is needed and the ROLB spot is the glamor position in this defense. With the line tying up blockers and creating havoc with strong play it will free the LBs to be even that much more effective. Look for Raji to get some good playing time and for Matthews to have a huge game against the Bengals. I'm loving the idea of turning him loose against Andrew Whitworth and letting him get after the QB in this game. After the game against the Bears, I think that the Bengals will be focusing a lot on Jenkins, Raji, Jolly and Kampman (who will be going up against 2nd year player Anthony Collins). Last week, Carson Palmer completed 21 of 33 passes for about 250 yards, but he was sacked 3 times (all by linebackers) and he threw 2 INTs and no TDs.

I'm also excited about how our defensive backs match up against their wideouts. Harris, Woodson and Williams against Ochocinco, Coles and Henry. Thankfully, the Bengals don't have a threat at the TE or RB positions, so they really can match up and battle it out. Collins is going to be a key in this game, because all 3 of the Bengals top guys can make plays and he has to keep them from breaking loose. It's going to be a heck of a battle, that's for sure.

I'm excited to see how Barbre responds to his debacle against the Bears. This is where we'll find out if we've got a player who can adapt and improve or not. He's got a weeks worth of film on his technique and on his opponent (Robert Geathers) and hopefully he'll get his problems fixed while being better prepared for dealing with his individual opponent. I expect the Bengals to throw a lot of stuff at Barbre this weekend. Hopefully he's enough of a player to deal with it and continue to improve.

Shoring up the O-line play is going to be key to getting the offense on-track. If the Packers end up having to assign one of their weapons to pick up guys running past Barbre all season, the entire nature of our game changes for the worse.

I'm not too worried yet, however -- one game does not a season make.

I just hope no one takes these Bungles lightly. If we play like we are capable they don't stand a chance. But they are getting paid too so anything can happen. I'm thinking because we didn't play all that great on offense Sunday night the coaches will get after the guys at practice this week and they won't become complacent.