It's safe to say the earlier blowout loss to the Green Bay Packers irritated Bears linebacker Roquan Smith more than last week's Pro Bowl snubbing.

The truth is Smith gets nowhere near the respect he deserves during a year when many of the higher-paid Bears defensive players have turned in mediocre seasons. The disrespect keeps on coming.

Not only did 49ers linebacker Fred Warner beat Smith out for the Pro Bowl, but he also was named defensive player of the week for the last game when he had the same number of unassisted tackles as Smith had against Jacksonville (8) and made three pass defenses—while Smith didn't just defend three passes or knock a fumble loose like Warner, he actually intercepted two.

So it goes for Smith, who has 21 more tackles, 26 more solo tackles, 13 more tackles for loss, four more sacks and one more pass defense than Warner this year but constantly is overlooked.

"I just let the numbers speak for themselves, I feel like, and also the games," Smith said.

He might want to have them speak louder. The AP All-Pro teams are to be revealed soon and with it comes extensive prestige.

"You look at each and every game, the games I played, I think that speaks for itself," Smith added. "I don't know what others are out there doing. I'm not really that worried about that. But as far as me, I'm just controlling what I can control.

"It's not my job to vote myself in or anything like that. Controlling the things that I can control, going out, busting my tail each and every week and do what I can to put the world on notice. But it is what it is; and it's just more motivation for myself and for my teammates. So it's just the next thing coming."

Smith has even begun to win over Pro Football Focus, a constant critique of his. They finally have him up to a 66.2 overall grade on the year, which is respectable, not especially good. He has a spectacular 84.2 pass defense grade but a ridiculously low 37.5 run grade. How a player gets a run grade that low and leads the NFL in solo tackles is a really good question for the people who like to crunch numbers under the guise of metric experts.

Smith continues to lead all actual linebackers in tackles for loss with 17. The only one with more is T.J. Watt with Pittsburgh, who is an edge rusher and not a real linebacker.

"We'll see what happens here with the All-Pro deal because I do think he's gonna make that and I think he should," inside linebackers coach Mark DeLeone said.

Bobby Wagner of Seattle ended up ahead of him in the Pro Bowl voting, as well, and Wagner has 10 fewer tackles for loss, 19 fewer solo tackles. Wagner hasn't made an interception and has one less sack than Smith with three.

"I wouldn't say I was a little angry," Smith said. "Because at the end of the day, that means it gets to you. It didn't get to me. At the end of the day, it’s others’ opinions and I don’t really care that much about that personally. My job is just to go out there and be the best linebacker in the league on each and every given Sunday and be the best linebacker I can be for this team. So that's my mindset. I'll leave others up to like who they want to vote for and things of that nature. I don’t really care honestly."

Smith, of course, does care about beating Green Bay and making the playoffs. The Bears defense wants badly to make up for the embarrassing way they gave up 34 of the Packers' 41 points in the 41-25 loss at Lambeau Field on Nov. 29, as well.

"Five weeks ago or however long that was ago, we did not play to our standards and that wasn't the way we had envisioned on coming out but it happened," Smith said. "So we just got to put that on the back of our shoulders and add more fuel to our fire and we just know we can't play like that coming into this next game if we want to win."

The matchup against the Packers offense is as much mental as physical because of the way quarterback Aaron Rodgers quickly diagnoses what defenses are doing.

"We obviously know this guy makes a lot of adjustments at the line," Smith said. "He's great at what he does, plays the game at a very high level. But it’s going to be more so about us, like he's going to do what he's going to do and we're going to do what we're going to do and we're just going to let it go from there."

The Bears seemed confused in coverages last game as receivers broke wide open at times, much as they did against a similar style of offense when they played the Los Angeles Rams.

"It's just more so about just identifying formations and keys and tendencies and just recognizing what they like to do in certain situations and also about just playing what you get, not like assuming or anything like that," Smith said.

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