The oldest rivalry in the National Football League will renew its battles on Saturday as the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers meet for the third time in six weeks. The Packers haven’t won a game since they edged Chicago at Lambeau Field last month. A game saved by an endzone interception while the Bears were in position to send the game into overtime or go for a two-point conversion to win or lose the contest by a point.
Two weeks later, the Bears got quick revenge at Soldier Field when they handed the Packers a 22-16 setback. The Bears haven’t won since, holding onto the second seed despite season ending defeats to the San Francisco 49ers and Detroit Lions.
The Packers come into this meeting on a four game losing run suffered against the Denver Broncos, Bears, Baltimore Ravens and Minnesota Vikings. The Packers haven’t won a game since they lost Micah Parsons to a season ending injury.
Does that mean both these teams are in decline entering the playoffs or something else?
Something else.
A kiss of death for a team entering the postseason is to win a game at the end of the year that they don’t need. Losing meaningless games is usually a good thing.
Now, the Packers loss to the Bears three weeks ago was not meaningless, but it was a likely spot for Chicago to gain revenge for their defeat at Lambeau Field two weeks earlier. The Packers were not going to catch the Bears for the NFC North Division title after losing in Chicago, so Green Bay Head Coach Matt LaFleur played the remainder of the season protecting many of his starters from possible injury and aiming his sights on Saturday night’s game on the Bears home field.
While Chicago had a handle on the division title, they were still hopeful of improving their seed to number one in the NFC. For that to happen, a win in San Francisco would have gone a long way to improve their chances and would have eliminated the possibility of the 49ers earning the top seed. At Levi’s Stadium two weeks ago, the Bears offense was prolific against an injury depleted 49ers defense. It pretty much came down to the Bears being held to a field goal and the 49ers scoring the go-ahead touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
Still, the Bears had a chance to win when quarterback Calib Williams drove Chicago in the final minute of game clock deep into the red zone. That possible effort to erase a four-point deficit and pull out the win ended with an incomplete pass as time expired. Last week, at home against the Lions who had been eliminated from even Wild Card consideration the week before, the Bears needed a win to lock up the number two seed in their conference.
They didn’t get it, suffering a 19-16 loss to their division rivals. But, the team that could have overtaken them for the NFC number two seed, the Philadelphia Eagles, focused on opening the playoffs with their key starters rested. Last week, against the Washington Commanders, Eagles Head Coach Nick Sirianni played numerous backups, including at quarterback, runningback and wide receiver, while losing at home to Dan Quinn’s squad.
In other words, the Eagles surrendered the number two seed with probable thinking that a more rested team would be better than risking injury to front line players while even a win wouldn’t improve their playoff seed if the Bears also won.
Our perspective indicates the Eagles surrendered the game last week, but the Bears wanted the victory and didn’t get it.
Now, the Bears want a victory again and are meeting a Packers team that hasn’t won a game since their triumph over Chicago more than a month ago.
Who does this lend an advantage to in their opening playoff game?
The team that has spent the past two weeks resting players with a focus on this game and looking for a revenge victory for their loss last month over the team that wanted to win the past two weeks and didn’t.
Qoxhi Picks: Green Bay Packers (-1) over Chicago Bears