A win Saturday night would increase the Bears’ lead in the NFC North to a game-and-a-half over Green Bay. A loss would drop them into second place, a half game behind the Packers.
“This is what you play football for,” said veteran defensive tackle Grady Jarrett. “This is what you dream about: the opportunity to play primetime football, a rivalry game, playoff implications, seeding implications. You’ve got two prime QBs, two really good defenses. You can’t ask for a better moment. I’m excited to be a part of it.”
The Bears will look to avenge a 28-21 loss to Green Bay Dec. 7 at Lambeau Field. In that game, they rallied from a 14-3 halftime deficit to forge a 21-21 tie, but Josh Jacobs’ 2-yard touchdown run with 3:32 remaining was the difference. The contest was not decided, however, until Caleb Williams’ pass intended for Cole Kmet in the end zone on fourth-and-1 from the Packers’ 14 was intercepted by cornerback Keisean Nixon with :22 to play.
Williams and his teammates are eager for the rematch.
“I’m excited for it,” Williams said. “I think everybody’s excited for it … We feel like we let them off the hook. Part of that was us starting slow, part of that was the explosive plays and allowing something that we’ve been pretty good at so far this year for all sides of the ball.
“We want to go out there and play our brand of football, and it gives us the best shot to go win the game, and that’s starting fast, playing physical, executing plays the way that we know we can—offense, defense and special teams—and we’re excited to go showcase that.”
In the Dec. 7 game in Green Bay, the defense allowed Jordan Love to throw TD passes of 45, 41 and 23 yards.
“We’ve just got to cut out the big plays and know every play counts,” Jarrett said. “We can’t make as many mistakes, whether it’s executing on defense, or a turnover here, or not getting a turnover here. We’ve got to be on our Ps and Qs. That’s one of the biggest lessons we had to learn the hard way the first time out there. We’re going to zoom in on that and focus on the things we can control.”
This season marks the first time the Bears and Packers have played each other twice in three weeks since 1998 and the first time they’ve met twice in 13 days since 1985.
“Any time you play a team in the division,” Johnson said, “there’s certainly elements you look at from the first game of what you did well, what you didn’t do well and you try to make sure that you don’t make the same mistakes and try to continue to attack them in a certain fashion. There are things I thought we did well in that first game, particularly in the second half. We played a lot better on offense.”
The biggest difference from the first meeting will be the absence of Packers star outside linebacker Micah Parsons, who had two quarterback hits Dec. 7 against the Bears but sustained a torn ACL last Sunday versus the Broncos.
With Parsons sidelined, the cat and mouse game between the two coaching staffs will only intensify.
“You’re trying to forecast what they might do to match certain personnel groups or slow down our run game,” Johnson said. “That’s a difficult thing to do. We’ve got to be prepared to adjust and play accordingly.”
Saturday night’s game against Green Bay is the first of three straight versus NFC playoff contenders to conclude the regular season for the Bears. They’re scheduled to visit the 49ers a week from Sunday night and host the Lions Jan. 3 or 4.
Jarrett believes that the keys to handling the high stakes are “just believing that we are built for this moment, getting back to the basics, especially late in the season, knowing we don’t have to reinvent the wheel” and “just trust our training.”
“We definitely have built our bodies and minds to be able to really thrive in this position, whether guys know it or not,” he said. “We’ve really been pushed and tested for times like this. I think we will be ready to go and do what we need to do.”
