Bears head coach Ben Johnson looks to back up his aggressive anti-Packers rhetoric as his team faces Green Bay this Sunday at Lambeau Field.
The vitriol was audible in the Bears locker room back in January. an expletive-laden declaration against the Green Bay Packers that signaled a new. sharper edge to an old rivalry. Ben Johnson, fresh off a playoff win, made his stance clear: he hates them. There was no apology then. and there is no softening of that tone now. even as the stage shifts to Lambeau Field this Sunday.
Following Sunday’s recent victory. Johnson avoided the theatrics of his winter outburst. offering only a focused directive to his players: “You guys know what next week is?. Enough said.” But the sentiment remains, echoing through the halls of Halas Hall. Receiver Luther Burden. capturing the mood of the locker room. made it simple: “I feel like he wants to beat them really bad. Like everybody else in the room, every Chicago fan. We just want to beat them real bad and make them quit.”.
This week provides the ultimate test of whether the Bears’ recent surge is sustainable or just another false dawn in a century-old conflict. While Packers coach Matt LaFleur has attempted to steer the narrative away from the coaches—telling Green Bay reporters Monday. “This game is about players”—the friction between him and Johnson remains palpable. It traces back to Johnson’s first day on the job. when he noted his enjoyment of beating LaFleur twice a year as a Lions assistant. The two have since traded barbs through the media. their icy postgame handshakes serving as the only physical contact in a long-distance war of words.
The organizational trajectories, however, offer the most compelling evidence of a potential shift. The Bears. starting the season 3-1 despite cycling through three different quarterbacks. currently lead the league in total yards gained and hold the NFL’s third-best point margin at plus-47. Green Bay. meanwhile. has struggled significantly; they are currently outscored by 32 points. ranked 19th in yardage. and sit with the sixth-fewest points scored. The Packers have managed only two wins this season: an overtime victory against a Jets team the Bears previously beat by 11. and a win over a Buccaneers squad that started an undrafted rookie quarterback.
History looms heavy over the matchup. Despite the Bears’ 31-27 wild-card playoff win last season, the Packers have dominated the last 30 years of the rivalry. Chicago has been here before, only to be dismantled by Green Bay in the seasons that followed. Coaches like Marc Trestman. John Fox. and Matt Nagy all saw early success against the Packers. only to be met with lopsided losing streaks that eventually led to their dismissals. In contrast. Johnson has already secured more wins against Green Bay than any Bears coach since Lovie Smith. a trend he hopes to cement on Sunday.
Bears chairman George McCaskey acknowledged the reality back in April at the league’s annual meeting. While he defended Johnson’s aggressive remarks, he noted that the words require results to hold any weight. “If we don’t beat them in the playoffs. then the narrative is still. ‘Well. you still can’t get past them. ’” McCaskey said. “The rivalry is 100 plus years old. And, sad to say, the last 30 years they’ve had the better of us.”.
As Sunday approaches. the stakes are stripped of the distractions of injury lists—with stars like Caleb Williams and Micah Parsons sidelined—leaving the identity of the two programs as the primary focus. For Johnson, this is the first chance to definitively back up the frustration he unleashed in January. “This is a big week for us,” Johnson said. “It’s important to our organization, it’s important to theirs as well. It’ll be really good competition here on Sunday.”.
Ben Johnson Chicago Bears Green Bay Packers Matt LaFleur NFL rivalry Lambeau Field NFL news