Extra Points: Rodgers keeps Green Bay relaxed for now

(SportsNetwork.com) - Aaron Rodgers told the Green Bay Packers' fans to relax, not the defense of the Chicago Bears.

And professional football's real-life Valium tablet eased the anxiety of thousands of Cheeseheads on Sunday, while sending Second City residents scurrying for their own diazepam prescriptions by doing what he always does, slicing and dicing through the Bears D like a Ginsu knife coming down on an aluminum can.

Rodgers threw for 302 yards and four touchdowns -- two each to Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb -- and amassed a gaudy 151.2 passer rating as the Packers ran away from the Bears in the second half en route to an easy 38-17 victory, the 700th in the storied history of the franchise.

"Big win. It's always nice to be part of history. I feel very good about what was accomplished today," Packers head coach Mike McCarthy said following the win.

The Packers scored on their first six possessions of the game while piling up 358 yards of offense versus the paltry 223, their lowest total in five years, a week earlier in a 19-7 loss at Detroit.

"We produced. We scored points. We were very basic in our approach. The pass protection was very good," McCarthy continued. "Aaron (Rodgers) was excellent throwing to the open guy. We wanted to come in here and play fast."

Cobb finished with seven receptions for 113 yards and Nelson had 10 for 108 as the Packers won by three TDs despite surrendering 496 yards thanks in large part to the errors of Rodgers' counterpart with the Bears, Jay Cutler.

Cutler threw two key interceptions in the third quarter and also made the cardinal mistake of throwing the football to Martellus Bennett in the middle of the field without any timeouts in the waning seconds of the first half.

Bennett appeared to possibly reach the ball across the goal line but then bobbled it as he brought it back to his body, keeping the Pack on top at intermission and what turned out to be a major momentum swing.

"It was a huge play," McCarthy admitted.

Historically the Packers have always been Cutler's biggest nemesis and the veteran starter fell to 1-10 lifetime against the one team he has to beat in order to keep Chicago diehards satiated.

Despite the win, though, it's probably not a very good idea for the Green Bay faithful to recline the La-Z-Boy just yet.

Relax, of course, was the one-word message Rodgers sent to his team's followers as the Packers were getting ready to face their biggest rival this week.

"Five letters here just for everybody out there in Packer-land: R-E-L-A-X," Rodgers said Tuesday on his ESPN Milwaukee radio show. "Relax. We're going to be OK."

The fact that he Green Bay offense has been very un-Packerlike through three games -- ranking 28th in a 32-team league -- had many questioning Rodgers' attempts at calming the reactionary masses.

When you add in that Rodgers simply hadn't been his accurate self early in 2014, completing just 62.7 percent of his passes coming into Sunday's contest, a standard well below his career mark, and the stark reality of his failure to throw for 200 yards in two of his first three starts this season, you can understand the trepidation in the Badger State.

That said, there are a number of things you shouldn't do in life, activities like spitting in the wind or tugging on Superman's cape. And now, you can add another to that list, questioning Rodgers when the Bears are on the docket.

In his previous 12 starts against Chicago in which Rodgers actually finished the contest, he has amassed a 10-2 record with seven straight triumphs. In fact, the Bears only successful defense against him over the past half-dozen years was having Shea McClellin crash down on his clavicle in Green Bay a season ago.

Whether it's been Lovie Smith, Marc Trestman or Mel Tucker devising the plan to stop him, the result is almost always the same, the Bears come out on the short end because no one wearing the navy blue and burnt orange ever stops Green Bay's quarterback.

But, heck few do.

Rodgers' best throw on Sunday didn't even count. A brilliant 50-yard TD toss on a string, fired while falling down in the midst of multiple defenders was called back for holding. You could watch football for another 100 years or so before he see a duplicate throw so Packers fans should indeed kick off their shoes when it comes to No. 12.

He remains among the best quarterbacks in all of football and by the very nature of the position, one of the two or three most impactful players in the game.

But the real "R-word" people should be paying attention to in Green Bay isn't relax, it's reputation.

Much like Rodgers, Green Bay general manager Ted Thompson, McCarthy and defensive coordinator Dom Capers all carry lofty reputations but unlike their star signal caller, they haven't been living up to theirs.

Thompson has missed on more draft picks than he has hit on in recent seasons, especially on the offensive line and the defensive side, while McCarthy drew up some mind-numbing game plans against Seattle and Detroit early this season. Capers, meanwhile, has cobbled together some awful defensive units over the past three seasons and his schemes continue to look terribly antiquated against the multitude of spread offenses populating the NFL.

And none of that changed Sunday in Chicago.