The Green Bay Packers came away with a pivotal 21-13 win over the Chicago Bears on Sunday, improving to 11-3 on the season and keeping themselves in great position to notch a first-round bye in the NFC.

Plus, the Packers basically ended the Bears' season in the process, which had to feel good seeing as how Chicago clinched the NFC North at Green Bay's expense late last year (and because, well, Packers-Bears is a pretty classic rivalry).

But what exactly did we learn about the Packers in their victory?

Well, Green Bay won this game in a similar fashion to the way it has collected each of its 11 wins this season. It hasn't been like previous years, where the Packers pour in 40 points and win by a landslide.

No; this year, Green Bay is winning a lot of tight games on the strength of its improved defense. As a matter of fact, the Packers have scored under 30 points in seven of their victories this year, and seven of them have also been by a margin of under 10 points.

That means Green Bay is doing a great job of getting timely scores and timely stops in close games, which is terrific. But on the other hand, it's also a little scary.

Why? Because this is not what we are accustomed to seeing from the Aaron Rodgers-led Packers.

Outside of a stretch between Weeks 4 and 8 where Rodgers looked an awful lot like his old self, the 36-year-old has been rather ordinary for most of 2019.

On Sunday, he completed just 16 of his 33 passes for 203 yards and a touchdown, and while he didn't turn the ball over, it wasn't exactly a masterful performance.

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Rodgers has not thrown for 300 yards since Week 8, posting totals of 161, 233, 104, 243, 195 and 203 over his last six games. He has also only logged one multi-touchdown game during that span, which came in Week 13 when he racked up four touchdown passes against the lowly New York Giants.

This is a bit concerning, because as improved as the Packers' defense is from last year, I'm not sure it's quite good enough to lead Green Bay to a Super Bowl.

It's weird. The Packers rank ninth in points allowed, but they are just 23rd in total defense, which means they are allowing a whole lot of yards but are managing to get stops to prevent scores.

While that might work during the regular season, you are walking a fine line employing that bend but not break strategy during the playoffs, as you are facing some of the best offenses in the NFL, offenses that will finish drives.

So while it's awesome that the Packers' defense is good enough to help them get to 11-3, it's concerning moving forward, because I think we will need to see a lot more vintage Rodgers in the postseason than we have seen during the regular season.

Is Rodgers still capable of that? Probably, because we have seen glimpses of it through 2019, and glimpses are really all you need in a short playoff run (especially if Green Bay nails down a first-round bye), but if the Packers are going to rely this heavily on their defense come January, they might find themselves bowing out of the postseason much earlier than they anticipated.