Anything can happen when Bears host Packers
Storied NFL rivalry features two teams with plenty to prove
Without knowing any history, you might think the first game of the NFL’S 100th season will be a simple and predictable clash of teams going in opposite directions.
Not bloody likely.
The Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers boast the league’s oldest rivalry. The teams hate each other and their games have been known to get nasty.
At the same time, it’s also a fresh start, and both the Bears and Packers will have plenty to prove when they meet at Soldier Field on Thursday night.
Nobody more so than the quarterbacks.
The Bears have a championship defence. But can they score enough?
Entering his third season, unheralded 25-year old Mitch Trubisky is determined to build off a 2018 campaign that saw him ranked 20th in passing yards. Yet, with plenty of help from a dominant defence, Trubisky guided the Bears to a turnaround 12-4 record before losing the wild-card game to the Philadelphia Eagles.
Facing the media in his one availability this week, Trubisky wore a T-shirt with the words “Chasing Great” across the front. At practice last week, his T-shirt had the names of his five offensive linemen.
“That’s pretty cool,” said head coach Matt Nagy. “There aren’t moving parts out there. Those are all the same guys.”
Trubisky is also on the same page as Nagy, who he’s now worked with for a full year.
“We’re very similar as far as wanting to throw the ball downfield, aggressive mindset mentality, and taking care of the football,” he said.
Said Nagy: “It’s him understanding where this offence can go, when you understand everything about it. It’s him answering a question right away, rather than having to think about it. There were so many unknowns last year. He now knows how I call a game. And now I know what he likes.”
According to vegasinsider.com, the Bears are 12/1 odds to win the Super Bowl next February in Miami — same as the New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles, and just behind the New England Patriots (6/1) and Kansas City Chiefs (5/1).
Green Bay, which owns a 96-94-6 all-time record versus Chicago, is also in the top half of the pack at 20/1. On one hand, that’s surprising, given that the Packers are coming off their worst season (6-9-1) since 2008 and have missed the playoffs in consecutive years for the first time since 2005-2006. But at their helm is 35 year-old future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers, entering his 15th season.
Rodgers was surely embarrassed over a Bleacher Report story of the “toxic” relationship he had with former Packers coach Mike Mccarthy, who was fired after the Packers fell to 4-71 last season.
And now he wants to make things right under new head coach Matt Lafleur.
“I feel like I have unfinished business here in Green Bay,” Rogers told John Kuhn, who spent most of his 12 seasons as a fullback with the Packers and five months ago joined the team as a sports analyst for the digital, broadcast and game presentation department.
“There aren’t many of us left who remember 2010. So there’s a lot of hungry guys in the locker-room.
“I want to win another championship. That’s the No. 1 focus.”
But what good is it to have the best ball thrower in the league if he doesn’t have dependable targets?
Randall Cobb, who beat the Bears in Week 1 last season with a late game 75-yard TD, signed a one-year, $5 million deal with the Cowboys in the off-season. And with tight end Jimmy Graham nursing a sore finger, more pressure will be on third-year WR Marquez Valdes-scantling, who caught just 38 of 73 targets for 581 yards in 2018.
Rodgers is anxious to continue growing his chemistry with 26 year-old Davante Adams, who came up just one catch shy of the team record in receptions co-owned by Sterling Sharpe and Jordy Nelson.
“He’s like me,” Rodgers told reporters this week. “We’re about winning. If we’re winning, he’s getting the ball.”
Against the league’s top defence, expect Lafleur and Rodgers to come up with a few surprises. And don’t figure on this being a simple, predictable clash.