LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — The Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers have played each other more than any other two teams in the NFL. Playoff games, however, are a rarity.
The Bears and Packers will add another chapter to the league's longest rivalry when they meet in a wild-card game at Soldier Field on Saturday night. It'll be just the third time the franchises of Halas and Lombardi have faced off in the postseason, and the significance wasn't lost on the participants.
“It's a crazy rivalry, like, and the fact that we’re playing them in the playoffs too, it just magnifies it another notch, almost,” Packers safety Xavier McKinney said. “And it makes it that much more important.”
Bears tight end Cole Kmet grew up in the Chicago area and developed a strong rooting interest for any Green Bay opponent. He now has a personal tie to the Packers: His sister is dating defensive tackle Lukas Van Ness.
“It means a lot,” Kmet said. “To be able to be at home against Green Bay, it’s going to be a special atmosphere, and it almost feels like we’ve played these guys like five or six times here in the past month. But I think that’ll just make the atmosphere in the battle that much more epic.”
The Bears (11-6) are hosting a playoff game for the first time since the 2018 season, when Cody Parkey's double-doink missed field goal sealed a wild-card loss to Philadelphia.
They've lost three straight playoff games since the 2010 team beat Seattle in the divisional round at Soldier Field, and the way that season ended remains a bitter memory for their fans. The Bears lost at home in the NFC championship game to Aaron Rodgers and the hated Packers.
Green Bay (9-7-1) has dominated the rivalry in recent decades, but during the past two seasons, it's been even. Last year, both games were decided on field-goal attempts by Chicago's Cairo Santos — one was blocked and the other was successful. Both meetings this season were close, with Green Bay winning at Lambeau Field in Week 14 and Chicago prevailing in overtime two weeks later.
Johnson led turnaround for Bears
With coach Ben Johnson setting the tone in his first season and quarterback Caleb Williams making strides in his second year, the Bears went from finishing last in the NFC North to winning the division for the first time since 2018. They made the playoffs for the first time in five years and secured the No. 2 seed in the NFC, but they lost their last two games of the regular season — 42-38 at San Francisco and 19-16 to Detroit on a last-second field goal.
Packers' defense struggles without Parsons
The Packers have lost four straight. With the No. 7 seed in the NFC locked up, they rested their top players last week at Minnesota.
Limping into the postseason was not what the Packers envisioned when they season began. A trade with Dallas for star pass rusher Micah Parsons sent expectations soaring. The two-time All-Pro suffered a season-ending knee injury in a Week 15 loss at Denver, and the defense has struggled without him. Green Bay blew second-half leads against the Broncos and at Chicago the following week, and then gave up 307 yards rushing while falling 41-24 at home to Baltimore.
The Packers expect to have quarterback Jordan Love back. He missed the final two regular-season games after exiting the loss at Chicago with a concussion.
Bears' Nixon was a pivotal figure in both regular-season games
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The Packers overtook the Bears for the NFC North lead with a 28-21 win in Week 14, hanging on thanks to an interception by Keisean Nixon in the end zone with 22 seconds remaining. Chicago had fourth-and-1 at the 14 and Williams badly underthrew Cole Kmet.
Williams got some payback two weeks later by throwing a 46-yard touchdown pass to DJ Moore in overtime for a 22-16 win. The Bears rallied from 10 points down in the final two minutes of regulation. Nixon had coverage on the winning TD, after he and Nate Hobbs left Jahdae Walker wide open on the tying score. Nixon was looking forward to playing the Bears again.
“I didn’t want nobody else,” he said. “I wanted the Bears.”
Not much playoff history for these franchises
The last time Green Bay and Chicago met in the playoffs, Rodgers took a Lambeau leap out of Brett Favre's shadow and the Packers knocked Jay Cutler out of the game with a knee injury on the way to a 21-14 victory.
The Packers went on to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers two weeks later in Dallas and bring the Lombardi Trophy back to “Titletown USA” for the first time since the 1996 team won it.
In 1941, George Halas' Bears beat Curly Lambeau's Packers in the playoffs at Wrigley Field. Chicago then knocked off the New York Giants in the NFL championship game, also at Wrigley.
Packers seek to end skid
The Packers are the fourth team in NFL history to head into the playoffs on a losing streak of at least four games.
The others were the 1986 New York Jets, 1999 Detroit Lions and 2024 Pittsburgh Steelers. Those Lions and Steelers both lost their playoff openers. The Jets won a wild-card game against Kansas City before losing to Cleveland in overtime in the divisional round.
AP Sports Writer Steve Megargee contributed to this report.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
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