We\u2019ve known it was coming. Somehow, some way. Even when the Chicago Bears couldn\u2019t seal the deal against the Detroit Lions, the Eagles made sure fate didn\u2019t cheat us of what we deserve.<\/p>\n
Bears vs. Packers. Round 3. Win or go home.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve seen that movie twice before in recent memory. Both times\u20142010 and 2013\u2014we 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\u2019s on Chicago\u2019s side, even though the Bears got the last laugh a few weeks ago at Soldier Field.<\/p>\n
But for the purposes of this battle, none of that matters.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Now, this is where I might say that none of this history between the Bears and Packers\u2014not the game two weeks ago in Chicago nor the one-sided recent history of this rivalry\u2014matters in the slightest. And to an extent, that\u2019s true. Football is played between the gridiron\u2019s lines, not the headlines of newspapers and talk shows.<\/p>\n
But all you had to do was watch that game two weeks ago to know that\u2019s not true. Beating the Packers matters. A lot. The energy from that night was simply different.<\/p>\n
These new, swaggering Bears don\u2019t 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\u2019re out to show the Packers and the entire NFL that this isn\u2019t a fluke. They\u2019re here, and they\u2019re not leaving. That the North goes through them for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n
What better way to prove both points than to own this matchup on Saturday?<\/p>\n
Remember: this team wasn\u2019t supposed to be here. Even in our wildest hopes, many of us didn\u2019t dare assume the Bears would do this in Ben Johnson\u2019s first year or that Caleb Williams would evolve into one of the NFL\u2019s best clutch quarterbacks so soon. And even now, plenty of people don\u2019t believe in them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll those last-second wins aren\u2019t sustainable.\u201d \u201cThey still haven\u2019t beaten the Packers when Love plays a full game.\u201d \u201cWilliams still isn\u2019t ready for primetime.\u201d \u201cThis isn\u2019t a championship-level defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, guess what? The Bears are the No. 2 seed in the NFC. They earned that, even if they backed into it. Now, it\u2019s time to send the message loud and clear that they belong.<\/p>\n
And if they\u2019re going to do that\u2014to put the entire league on notice\u2014who 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 played for NFC titles?<\/p>\n
Sure, beating the Rams or 49ers on Wildcard Weekend would\u2019ve been plenty impressive. But I\u2019d be lying if I said I would\u2019ve been disappointed if it had turned out that way.<\/p>\n
I wanted this matchup, and you should to. Not just for bragging rights, but to assert dominance. To put the Packers in their place. To vanquish their biggest demon and make them feel like anything is possible.<\/p>\n
And if they can\u2019t do it next Saturday, then it\u2019ll just prove they weren\u2019t ready for the moment after all, leaving us all to wonder when the moment of their revenge would finally come.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s what sports are about. You either put up or shut up.<\/p>\n
The Bears got the first-round opponent they deserve to set up a championship run\u2014or to show them how far they have to go. And I personally wouldn\u2019t have it any other way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019ve known it was coming. Somehow, some way. Even when the Chicago Bears couldn\u2019t seal the deal against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2070],"tags":[374,692,391,741,2493,7,53724,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-656556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bears","8":"tag-bears","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-bears","11":"tag-chicago-bears-news","12":"tag-chicagobears","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-from-the-desk-of","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115843954901551176","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}