Windy City Gridiron
Scared, Bears fans?
Don’t be.
We’ve known it was coming. Somehow, some way. Even when the Chicago Bears couldn’t seal the deal against the Detroit Lions, the Eagles made sure fate didn’t cheat us of what we deserve.
Bears vs. Packers. Round 3. Win or go home.
We’ve seen that movie twice before in recent memory. Both times—2010 and 2013—we got our hearts broken, once with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line. With the Packers fully rested heading into this Saturday night tilt and the Bears less so after playing their starters and losing to Detroit, the momentum might not feel like it’s on Chicago’s side, even though the Bears got the last laugh a few weeks ago at Soldier Field.
But for the purposes of this battle, none of that matters.
The Bears will have no problem getting up for this one: at home, with a rabid city behind them and their oldest rival taking the field in their loathsome white-and-greens.
Now, this is where I might say that none of this history between the Bears and Packers—not the game two weeks ago in Chicago nor the one-sided recent history of this rivalry—matters in the slightest. And to an extent, that’s true. Football is played between the gridiron’s lines, not the headlines of newspapers and talk shows.
But all you had to do was watch that game two weeks ago to know that’s not true. Beating the Packers matters. A lot. The energy from that night was simply different.
These new, swaggering Bears don’t see themselves as the little brothers in this matchup anymore. That much is plain from these last four matchups between the two teams, which have all come down to one score. They’re out to show the Packers and the entire NFL that this isn’t a fluke. They’re here, and they’re not leaving. That the North goes through them for the foreseeable future.
What better way to prove both points than to own this matchup on Saturday?
Remember: this team wasn’t supposed to be here. Even in our wildest hopes, many of us didn’t dare assume the Bears would do this in Ben Johnson’s first year or that Caleb Williams would evolve into one of the NFL’s best clutch quarterbacks so soon. And even now, plenty of people don’t believe in them.
“All those last-second wins aren’t sustainable.” “They still haven’t beaten the Packers when Love plays a full game.” “Williams still isn’t ready for primetime.” “This isn’t a championship-level defense.”
Well, guess what? The Bears are the No. 2 seed in the NFC. They earned that, even if they backed into it. Now, it’s time to send the message loud and clear that they belong.
And if they’re going to do that—to put the entire league on notice—who better to do it against than these stinking Packers? The ones who have broken their hearts with their season on the line so many times, who have laughed the Bears to Cancun while they...
