Head coach Matt LaFleur of the Green Bay Packers took a pretty clear shot, albeit in an unassuming fashion, at rival head coach Ben Johnson of the Chicago Bears to kick off the week preceding the teams’ first regular-season matchup this coming Sunday.
LaFleur and Johnson often display strikingly differing personalities in their various media interactions, which perhaps feeds into their lack of compatibility both personally and professionally. The Packers coach highlighted those differences during comments he made while speaking with reporters on Monday, October 5.
“It’s Packers-Bears week and Matt LaFleur was asked today why he doesn’t engage in rivalry trash talk publicly (a la Ben Johnson)?” Matt Schniedman of The Athletic posted to X, including LaFleur’s response.
“Because this game is about players and so we’ll keep it about the players. I’m not the one out there they’re playing … don’t get me wrong. I love
“Because this game is about players, and so we’ll keep it about the players. I’m not the one out there. They’re playing,” LaFleur said. “Don’t get me wrong. I love the rivalry. It’s awesome, it’s great, it’s intense. You can feel it on game-day. You can feel it throughout the course of the week.”
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Johnson famously offered a fiery speech in the locker room back in January after Chicago erased an 18-point halftime deficit to best Green Bay at Soldier Field in the opening round of the playoffs.
“[Explective] the Packers!” Johnson exclaimed in a video the Bears’ official X account shared on social media. “[Expletive] them! [Bleeping] hate those guys!”
And after the inevitable backlash that followed, Johnson refused to back off of his position.
“There’s a rivalry that exists between these two teams, something that I fully recognize and I’m a part of,” Johnson said, per Courtney Cronin of ESPN. “And, yeah, I just, I don’t like that team. So [Bears governor] George [McCaskey] and I have talked, and we’re on the same page.”
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It would appear that eight months later, Johnson remains on that exact page.
Bears wide receiver Luther Burden III spoke about his issues with Packers cornerback Keisean Nixon last season during a media session on Monday before addressing Johnson’s attitude toward Chicago’s NFC North Division rivals.
“I feel like he wants to beat them really bad, like everybody else in the room, every Chicago fan,” Burden said of Johnson, according to a report from Michael Dwojak of Bears Insider. “We just want to beat them real bad and make them quit.”
Neither team is near full strength heading into the matchup, as the Packers will be without the likes of inside linebacker Edgerrin Cooper (Achilles, out for season), right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele (knee, out for season), pass-rusher Micah Parsons (knee, week-to-week) and running back Josh Jacobs (off-field issues, Commissioner’s Exempt List) among others.
Chicago will start backup QB Tyson Bagent with Caleb Williams not practicing this week due to a hamstring strain. Left tackle Ozzy Trapilo remains a question mark after tearing his patellar tendon against the Packers during their playoff matchup in January, while running back Kyle Monangai is day-to-day with a thumb injury he sustained in Week 4.
Bears HC Ben Johnson Takes Shot From Packers’ Matt LaFleur to Kick Off Rivalry Week