Acme Packing Company
Shoutout to Bill Zimmerman of Windy City Gridiron, who writes for our sister site Windy City Gridiron and covers the Chicago Bears. Zimmerman stopped by this week to help us break down the Green Bay Packers’ wild card round opponent for our 5 Questions series. If you want to read the companion piece to this article, you can find it HERE.
Did Bears fans want this matchup as badly as Packers fans have? After the Chicago loss, we had some people suggest that the team just try to lock in the seventh seed so that we played the Bears (which were still a moving target at that point). I don’t think I know anyone who didn’t want this in the first round of the wild card after the second game between us.
I honestly think the Chicago fan base was split on this. If I’m being honest, and I think objective Packers fans would agree, from a straight football standpoint, other than the Panthers, the Packers would be the best team to face in the postseason. The 3 teams in the NFC West are dangerous, and the Eagles are defending Super Bowl champions. The Packers are a 9-7-1 team, and if you want to advance, that’s the best team to play. This isn’t the team in October with Tucker Kraft and Micah Parsons; they are certainly vulnerable. Doesn’t mean the Bears will win, but the Packers give them the best chance to win and advance to the next round.
But that being said, it’s the Packers. There is a sizeable part of the fan base that wanted to face the Packers because of the rivalry and because they have confidence that the tide has started to turn, they trust Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams, they love that this game will be in Chicago, and they wanted to face the Packers for the rivalry and for bragging rights.
But there is certainly another group of the fan base that has significant trauma from the last 30+ years. For those fans, there’s a sense of dread that the Bears can’t beat the Packers when it matters, and that this will be another chapter in that sad story. I saw some fans on social media who wanted the three seed so they could avoid the Packers. So I would say the majority of Bears fans wanted to face the Packers, but it’s far from unanimous.
So you’re finally getting receiver Rome Odunze back after he missed the first two Packers games this year. Let’s hear about how he’ll change the offense.
Well, here’s what I would start with: the Bears haven’t had all their offensive weapons healthy and on the field at this point in their development yet this season. Colston Loveland and Luther Burden have really come into their own over the last 5 or 6 weeks. Odunze has missed 5 games, and with him back, this will be the potential for the most potent group...
