LAKE FOREST, Ill. – The Bears didn’t amass as many rushing yards as they would have liked Sunday night in Green Bay, but their commitment to the run was a key factor in their 27-20 win over the Packers.

Achieving balance on offense, Cedric Benson rushed for 64 yards on a career-high 27 carries, while Brian Griese threw 25 passes one week after tossing 52 in a loss to the Detroit Lions.

“A lot has been said about our running game,” said coach Lovie Smith. “We had a lot of carries. We would like for the yards per carry to go up, and eventually it will. I thought Cedric Benson ran the ball hard—good physical runs—especially late in the game when we needed him to.”

Cedric Benson prepares to fend off a tackler with a stiff arm Sunday night in the Bears' win in Green Bay.

“The biggest thing for us is we ran the football better,” Griese said. “That’s the key to winning in this league, is being able to run the football.”

While Benson averaged just 2.4 yards per carry, the fact that the Bears kept feeding him the ball helped create favorable one-on-one match-ups in the passing game.

It also forced the Packers defense to respect the play-action fake, which Griese executed to perfection on his game-winning 34-yard touchdown pass to Desmond Clark.

“We said we had to stick with [the run],” said offensive coordinator Ron Turner. “We were down 10 at half and we said we’ve got to stick with it and mix in some play-action and try to make some plays in the passing game, which we ended up doing.”

The Packers defense had not allowed a rushing touchdown this season before Benson’s 10-yard scoring run tied the game 7-7 midway through the second quarter.  

“They weren’t giving me anything easy, and that was fun,” said Benson, who rushed for a career-high 109 yards on just 13 carries in last year’s season finale against the Packers. “They made me better. I commend them.

“They’ve got a good defensive line. It seemed like they were keen on stopping the run or not letting it be successful. We stuck with it and just kept masking it in there and got some breaks here and there and set up some other things with it.”

Benson ranks 18th in the NFL in rushing with 303 yards on 101 attempts. His 3.0 yards per carry average is the lowest among the league’s top 36 rushers. But only five NFL players have more rushing attempts: Pittsburgh’s Willie Parker (121), Arizona’s Edgerrin James (107), Seattle’s Shaun Alexander (102), Denver’s Travis Henry (102) and Baltimore’s Willis McGahee (102).

“We will continue to run the ball,” Smith said. “You can stop the run, you can gang up on the run. But normally it puts you in a one-on-one situation outside and when teams do that you have to make them pay. We were able to do that [Sunday] night with a lot of the passes.”

Benson hopes that the Bears remain committed to the run.

“That’s probably one of the most important things—not to shy away from it in a game, not to get discouraged with what you do best; just keep fighting, staying with it. It’s probably what our key success to the game was. We love to run the football and we stayed with it.”