The Chicago Bears could have easily lost all three times they played the Green Bay Packers last season, but these aren’t the same old Bears, and Ben Johnson isn’t the same old NFL head coach.
Despite early deficits to the Packers, Johnson and quarterback Caleb Williams engineered two late-game comebacks against Green Bay in the 2025-26 campaign — one late in the regular season that helped seal the NFC North Division for the Bears and the other during the opening weekend of the playoffs that propelled Chicago forward and sent Green Bay packing.
Johnson emphatically expressed his disdain for the Packers in the Bears’ home locker room following the 18-point second-half comeback in January, shouting “[Expletive] the Packers!” more than once to a rousing round of applause from his team.
Packers Left Tackle Jordan Morgan Broke Silence on Bears Coach Ben Johnson Ahead of Week 5 Matchup
Now, almost nine months later, the Packers have not let that go. And third-year left tackle Jordan Morgan, a first-round pick of Green Bay out of Arizona in 2024, had some words for Johnson on Wednesday, October 7.
“Packers LT Jordan Morgan asked if Ben Johnson saying “[Expletive] the Packers” after the playoff game annoys people: ‘Yeah. I mean, he’s dissing us. He’s dissing the Packers. A lot of people in here, I’m pretty sure, take that to heart. And we got a chance to prove to everybody on Sunday that we the best team,'” Morgan said, per Matt Schneidman of The Athletic.
But while Packers loyalists could have pointed to uncharacteristic and unlikely late-game collapses in two losses across three contests against the Bears last season and still claimed — within a modicum of reason — that Green Bay was the superior football team, that argument is considerably tougher to make after four weeks of the 2026 campaign.
Bears Appear Considerably Better Than Packers Through 4 Weeks
Chicago is 3-1 this year, losing only to the Minnesota Vikings in a wet and rainy slog-fest at Soldier Field in Week 2.
The Bears may well be undefeated if the field was dry, as Williams probably would not have suffered a non-contact, Grade 2 hamstring injury that stopped him in his tracks a couple yards shy of the goal line with Chicago trailing 9-3 in the fourth quarter.
But even without Williams, the Bears offense has been dominant over the past two weeks while featuring reserve quarterbacks Case Keenum and Tyson Bagent, respectively. The defense has also surrendered just 19 points across those two contests combined.
The Packers, meanwhile, are fortunate to be 2-2. They bested the New York Jets in overtime after some of the worst clock management you’ll ever see late in Week 2 by the Jets coaching staff. Two weekends later, Green Bay beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers by three points after they started undrafted rookie QB Jalon Daniels in his first-ever NFL action.
Many of the Packers’ issues boil down to health concerns, with pass-rusher Micah Parsons still out of practice this week, while right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele and inside linebacker Edgerrin Cooper are now done for the year due to major injuries.
Green Bay’s offensive line is a mess and its run game is the worst in the league by a wide margin, as Josh Jacobs remains designated to the Commissioner’s Exempt List.
As a result, the Bears are head to Lambeau Field as 2.5-point favorites as of Thursday morning, according to DraftKings Sportsbook.
Bears HC Ben Johnson Catches Stray From Packers’ 1st-Rounder Before Showdown