Bear Digest

Chicago Bears' history against defending champs since Super Bowl XX win

Facing the Eagles on Black Friday will be a difficult task for the Bears but it almost always is a challenge to play the defending champions.
Gene Chamberlain|
The Eagles let Cody Parkey know the double-doink missed in the Bears' 16-15 playoff loss at Soldier Field.
The Eagles let Cody Parkey know the double-doink missed in the Bears' 16-15 playoff loss at Soldier Field. | Mike DiNovo-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

The Bears face the defending Super Bowl champions this afternoon and a few of their most exciting and entertaining games over the years came in such circumstances.

However, since the Mike Ditka coaching regime, like with everything else, they've had mostly horrible performances and depressing verdicts.

It's not easy playing a team coming off a world's championship. They thought they had a playoff win over the defending champions in 2018 before Cody Parkey came on for a relatively routine field goal try.

The only Bears Super Bowl victory came in a season when they had one of their most famous wins over a world champion team, their 26-10 manhandling of the 49ers in San Francisco in 1985.

Here are all of the Bears' games facing the defending champions since they were the world champions themselves.

2023: Chiefs 41, Bears 10

The dawn of the Taylor Swift age, as video proof positive came out about the singer and Travis Kelce in Week 3 of the regular season after Matt Eberflus' team got dismantled on the road at Kansas City. They were down 34-0 by halftime and Patrick Mahomes threw for 272 yards and three TDs.

2021: Buccaneers 38, Bears 3

Tom Brady threw his 600th TD pass with four TD passes on the day and 211 yards passing at Tampa Bay. The Bears were down 35-3 by halftime.

2018: Eagles 16, Bears 15*

Doink, doink

2013: Bears 23, Ravens 20 OT

In a game halted by a storm that produced tornadoes before being resumed, Marc Trestman's team won it on a Robbie Gould's 38-yard field goal with 8:41 left in overtime after the defense made a stand and forced a 21-yard field goal by Justin Tucker to tie it at the end of regulation. The defense picked off Joe Flacco twice and Josh McCown threw for 216 yards and a TD to Matt Forte.

2011: Packers 27, Bears 17

Packers 35, Bears 21

Green Bay had beaten the Bears in the NFC championship game and then went on to win the Super Bowl, so the Bears had to play twice against the defending champions. Aaron Rodgers owned them, throwing for 397 yards and three TDs at Lambeau Field, then throwing for five TDs and 283 yards at Soldier Field.

2009: Bears 17, Steelers 14

At Soldier Field, Gould's 44-yard field goal with 15 seconds left won it after Jay Cutler had pulled them into a tie with a 7-yard TD pass to Johnny Knox with 6:21 remaining in the fourth quarter. Cutler, in his second Bears game, outperformed Ben Roethlisberger. Cutler completed 27 of 38 for 236 yards with two TDs while Roethlisberger threw for 221 yards but had a critical interception by Charles "Peanut" Tillman.

2002: Patriots 33, Bears 30

Brady rallied the champions in the final three minutes in a game played at Champaign with Soldier Field under construction. He hit Kevin Faulk for a 36-yard TD and the Patriots forced a punt at the two-minute warning. Then he found David Patten for a 20-yard TD with 28 seconds remaining.

2001: Ravens 17, Bears 6

Dick Jauron's big season as coach began with the dominant defense of Ray Lewis owning the opener in Baltimore. The Bears had only 189 total yards and 138 came on Shane Matthews' passing. From there, the Bears won 13 of the next 15 games, losing only twice to Green Bay while winning the NFC Central title.

1997: Packers 38, Bears 24

Packers 24, Bears 23

They started the season at Lambeau Field with Erik Kramer throwing two interceptions and completing only 17 of 41 for 192 yards, while Brett Favre threw two TD passes. Then they lost the rematch when Kramer threw a 22-yard TD to Chris Penn but Dave Wannstedt's two-point conversion gamble for the possible win failed with a Kramer incompletion. Why go for two? Wannstedt said afterward he didn't want to give "Brent Favre" the chance to beat them with a late score. Actually Dave, it was Brett Favre, and he would have had the chance to beat them anyway because there was still 1:53 left on the clock when the conversion pass failed. He still only needed to get into field goal range, regardless.

1996: Bears 22, Cowboys 6

Wannstedt faced his former team in the opener, but Dallas was without a handful of key players, including Michael Irvin, and the Bears' defense dominated Barry Switzer's team at Soldier Field. Bryan Cox recovered a fumble in the end zone, Raymont Harris caught a wide-receiver option TD pass from Curtis Conway, and Carlos Huerta kicked three field goals. Then things returned to normal, and the Bears lost five of their next six in a 7-9 season.

1991: Bears 20, Giants 17

It was the third win in a 4-0 start to the season and came at Soldier Field. Neal Anderson broke a 42-yard TD run around left end with 6 1/2 minutes left and then Matt Bahr missed a tying 35-yard field goal try with 15 seconds left, as Bill Parcells misfortune with special teams at the old Soldier Field remained intact in Mike Ditka's last playoff season.

1989: 49ers 26, Bears 0

Ditka's team collapsed after the incorrect replay call at Green Bay and at season's end had lost five straight before closing the year with Mike Tomczak getting picked off twice in a quiet shutout in San Francisco.

1988: Bears 34, Redskins 14

Ditka had suffered a heart attack and had recovered enough to stand on the sidelines after Vince Tobin coached the team one game. The Bears scored an emotional rout of Joe Gibbs' team, the same team that had bounced the Bears from the playoffs in the two previous seasons. Dennis Gentry had five catches for 116 yards, Neal Anderson and Matt Suhey ran or TDs and Tomczak, playing for injured Jim McMahon, threw for 229 yards and a TD.  Maybe they should have played Tomczak instead of Doug Flutie in the 1986 playoffs?

1987: Bears 34, Giants 19

Billed as Super Bowl XXI 1/2, the Bears felt they would have been back-to-back champs if not for the Flutie fiasco and Jim McMahon's injury. They still didn't have McMahon for this hyped-up season opener on MNF. Their defense was every bit what it had been,  dominating the defending champion Giants like they had in the 1985 playoffs, with Wilber Marshall making three sacks, Mike Singletary two and Todd Bell, Richard Dent, Dan Hampton and Otis Wilson one each. Phil Simms lost two fumbles and led only one scoring drive, as the Giants’ other scores came on defense and a blocked punt. Dennis McKinnon returned a punt and 94 yards for a TD and Tomczak threw a 56-yard TD to Willie Gault, a 42-yarder to Ron Morris. He also scored on a 1-yard run.  

*Postseason

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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.