Bear Digest

Chicago Bears could get used to the fun of playing marquee matchups

Analysis: Facing the Eagles on Black Friday is the biggest game the Bears have played in the regular season since they trampled the Rams in 2018.
Gene Chamberlain|
The Bears swarm Jared Goff in 2018 in possibly their biggest late-season marquee showdown since 2012.
The Bears swarm Jared Goff in 2018 in possibly their biggest late-season marquee showdown since 2012. | Quinn Harris-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

The novelty of it all does not escape the Bears, even if they refuse to get caught up in the hype train.

At 8-3, they are playing in a big NFL game later in the season against the highest caliber of opponent possible on Black Friday, when they travel to Philadelphia to face another 8-3 team that just happened to win the Super Bowl last season.

This sort of thing just doesn't happen for them. They need to get used to it, because it is what Ben Johnson intends every year for this team.

"It is awesome just to be in this position, to be in a primetime game with two teams with the same record," safety Kevin Byard said. "It's going to be very important for us to go out there, obviously on a short week, to be able to execute the game plan and do all those things to try to go get a win."

If it's not prime time at 2 p.m., at least it's on Prime.

"We're not going to look at this as like it's the biggest game of the year  because it’s the team that was just obviously who just won a Super Bowl," Byard said. "But it's the most important game because, as you win multiple games and you get to this point where you're 8-3, like every game is the next game, is the biggest game of the year.

"The more and more you win, the more important each of these games are. So, we're going to treat it as such.”

Marquee matchup

The tendency for players is to downplay, but putting it in perspective for the organization and its fans is something else entirely.

The Eagles, Lions, 49ers, Packers, Rams, all of the teams of this ilk are used to this sort of thing.

Last week was important, and a battle of two division leaders, but the Steelers are a  fading team. Even though they are still tied for the lead in their division, the Ravens were 3 1/2 games behind once and have fitted them for a toe tag within a conference where it's going to take something more than a game over .500 to make the playoffs.

This one is actually a battle with the big boys.

A win can provide confirmation for the Bears.

With a loss, they remain a young team with undeniable momentum, still trying for the breakthrough and to get as many people back healthy as possible for big divisional clashes still to come.

The last time the Bears played a game like this as a team with an  outstanding record against another team on similar footing might have been the 2018 game at Soldier Field against the 11-1 Los Angeles Rams, when Khalil Mack, Akiem Hicks and Eddie Jackson came in at 8-4 and shut down Jared Goff in a show of defensive dominance, 15-6.

Ultimately, their kicker ruined every bit of that in postseason, but it was a huge regular-season game between two conference heavyweights. The Rams went on to make the Super Bowl.

The Bears’ 2020 playoff run was more an act of desperation and beating a few weaker teams to make up for earlier losing streaks just to finish .500.

Their last big game before the 2018 win over the Rams was the division title game in 2013, when Chris Conte broke the hearts of Bears fans by leaving Green Bay's Randall Cobb unattended for the game-winning 48-yard TD catch on fourth down in the closing seconds.

However, even that game wasn't a true marquee battle like this one on Black Friday because the Bears wound up .500 after the loss while the Packers finished only .500 after being bounced out in their first playoff game.

The last true battle like this one before their 2018 division title season was Lovie Smith's Bears in 2012 going to Seattle to face a rising power. Jay Cutler and Co. were two seasons removed from an NFC championship game appearance and had started 7-1. They were 8-3, like this Bears team, but in the down elevator as they’d lost two out of three. The Seahawks were a rising 7-5 team and the fading Bears lost in overtime 23-17.

Seattle went on a five-game winning streak, made the playoffs and the next season Russell Wilson and Co. won the Super Bowl.

From 8-3, the Bears went on a three-game losing streak, missed the playoffs at 10-6, Lovie Smith was fired, and huge late-season games became something other teams did until the 2018 season, and after that year not until now.

It's a long way since 21-49

Caleb Williams put the idea of a big game into the player's perspective.

"As a team, we don't put that type of energy, that type of pressure on any other game," he said. "We go into each game focused on being 1-0. You don't look over there and compare yourself to their record, their team, their coaches, their players or anything like that.

"We focus on us. We focus on ourselves. We focus on our details. We focus on, when we're in between that 53 1/3 (yards) and 120 (yards), execution and scoring as many points as possible. Then, obviously, the defense is trying to stop them from scoring as many points as possible. When you do that consistently, you'll come out with the right outcome at the end of it. That's what we focus on."

Instead, the fans can focus on ramifications, but the effect can't be denied when you look back over where the Bears were before they started this stretch of eight wins in nine games.

They had won 21 of their previous 70 games.

The fateful game in that stretch proved to be on Thanksgiving last year. It looks now like "Tanksgiving" for them, as Matt Eberflus ate his last timeout in a 23-20 loss at Detroit, and then he was gone the next day.

"You talk about where we were from at that point last year, I don't remember what the losing streak was at that point," Byard said. "But to be on the win streak we're on now, eight out of the last nine, it feels great.

"We want to be able to keep that going for sure.”

It's what big-time teams do.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.