GREEN BAY, Wis. — Matt LaFleur and Ben Johnson don’t go way back. They’re not friends, simply peers as head coaches of the teams in the NFL’s oldest rivalry. Two of the league’s brightest offensive minds, LaFleur and Johnson never overlapped at prior stops, as LaFleur did with the likes of fellow head coaches Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, Mike McDaniel and Raheem Morris.

Listen to Johnson’s introductory news conference as the Chicago Bears head coach from late January, however, and you may think differently.

“I wanted to stay in this division,” said Johnson, the former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator. “This is the toughest division in football right now. There’s three teams that made the playoffs this year. I’ve got (a) tremendous amount of respect for the coaches and the players in this league, having competed against them for the last six years. Dan Campbell, Kevin O’Connell — you’re talking about two guys that are up for Coach of the Year awards as the season ends here.

“And to be quite frank with you, I kinda enjoyed beating Matt LaFleur twice a year.”

Johnson didn’t just recite that last line plainly. He paused after “frank with you” as a smirk crept across his face, as if to heighten the anticipation for a dig sure to endear the Bears’ new head coach to his fans starving for relevance. Johnson hardly hid his grin after landing the jab at LaFleur, too. Poking fun at an old colleague? Nope. As LaFleur said in April at the annual league meeting, Johnson was just trying to curry favor with his new fan base. And even though LaFleur said then he wouldn’t lose sleep over the barb and added Monday that he won’t really think about it before the Bears and Green Bay Packers play Sunday for the first time this season, that doesn’t mean he’s telling the truth.

The sound byte from Ben Johnson’s introductory press conference as Chicago’s head coach that will be replayed over and over until the Bears play at Green Bay next Sunday: pic.twitter.com/z2NgCUG2Mn

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 28, 2025

Johnson isn’t entirely accurate, but that’s besides the point. He spent 2019-2024 with the Lions in varying capacities, and they split 12 games with the Packers during that time. The Lions swept the Packers twice in his three years as offensive coordinator. Nevertheless, Johnson’s 10-month-old shot at LaFleur is one of several things adding juice to a legendary rivalry that has lacked it, as the Packers have won 11 of 12 matchups since LaFleur arrived in 2019.

The other — and far more noteworthy — one is that first place in the NFC North is on the line. The 9-3 Bears sit atop the conference and division. The 8-3-1 Packers can overtake them with a win Sunday at Lambeau Field.

“I think there was going to be a lot of juice to it, regardless, but the top spot’s where we want to be,” wide receiver Christian Watson said. “Really, we’re just starting with the NFC North. They’re at the top of the NFC North right now, so we’re coming for that spot.”

LaFleur keeps what he says at the podium politically correct most of the time. He’d never say Johnson’s comments have added motivation for his team, but don’t be surprised if the Packers win and LaFleur’s first words in his postgame news conference are, “I guess Ben isn’t beating me twice this year.” That’s the type of petty that would be warranted after a victory of such magnitude, if the Packers pull one off.

We know publicly there’s at least some tension, playful or not, between the coaches. LaFleur took his own shot at Johnson in an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” before the second day of the NFL Draft in Green Bay.

“We got a great division,” LaFleur said. “You can’t discredit what the teams have done, and I think Chicago’s done a nice job of adding to their roster, and you get a good football coach, as he said himself, in Ben Johnson.”

LaFleur smirked, and laughter from McAfee and others on set interrupted him before the angel on LaFleur’s one shoulder silenced the devil on the other.

“No, I do respect Ben,” LaFleur said as he reversed course. “He’s one of the best play callers in the game.”

So make no mistake about it: Maybe there’s no disdain from one head coach to another, but there’s at least a spicy little something extra between them ahead of a game that already carries heightened stakes.

You might have to go all the way back to the 2018 season opener to find a Packers-Bears game with this much pregame hype. That was Khalil Mack’s first game for the Bears after they acquired him from the then-Oakland Raiders in a blockbuster trade, but even that was a game in which both teams entered with a blank slate.

There hasn’t been this much at stake for both teams since 2013, when John Kuhn stonewalled Julius Peppers to allow Aaron Rodgers time to find Randall Cobb for a game-winning 48-yard touchdown on fourth-and-8 with 38 seconds left. The Packers were 7-7-1 entering that regular-season finale, and the Bears were 8-7. The victor won the NFC North, and the loser missed the playoffs.

Since that day, the Packers are 19-3 against the Bears. Chicago’s first win in 12 tries with LaFleur on the other sideline came in January, when Green Bay was already locked into the No. 7 seed and quarterback Jordan Love, running back Josh Jacobs and wide receiver Christian Watson either got hurt that day and missed significant game time or were rested ahead of the playoffs. It’s about time the league’s most storied rivalry feels like a rivalry again.

There’s not quite as much on the line Sunday as there was that December night at Soldier Field 12 years ago, but first place in the division, potentially the NFC’s No. 1 seed and even a leg up in the head coaches’ petty war is plenty for the Packers to get up for.

“I feel like our team knows that we control our destiny at this point,” safety Evan Williams said. “There’s a lot that’s to be said about the Bears and how they’re doing right now. They’ve put together a hell of a season, but at the end of the day, I feel like we all understand if we go out there, put our best foot forward and play our best ball, that we don’t feel there’s a team that can hang with us. It’s definitely gonna be a big game. There’s a little extra hype behind that in that sense, but I feel like as a team, we all understand the type of game that this is gonna be, the type of physicality that needs to be put forward, and we’re gonna do our best to try to emulate that.”