Bear Digest

Packers Player Clearly Shaken by Bears Fans Chanting About His Team

One Packers wide receiver thinks the Bears and their fans are being too extreme with the chants about the Packers and Austin Booker's hit on Jordan Love.
Gene Chamberlain|
Austin Booker probably is not the guy Jordan Love wanted to see in pursuit during the playoffs.
Austin Booker probably is not the guy Jordan Love wanted to see in pursuit during the playoffs. | Matt Marton-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

My how the times have changed.

After decades of the Packers wiping their feet on the Bears and their fans with victories and insults, suddenly the feelings of Green Bay and its fans are hurt.

All it took was Ben Johnson following up on his statement about loving to beat Matt LaFleur twice in a season, and three wins in four games over the Packers for this to occur. That and a couple of hits by Austin Booker on Jordan Love.

A few years ago, when Matt Eberflus was bowing down to LaFleur seeking an audience with his greatness at a Marquette basketball game, no one cared. Aaron Rodgers insulted the Bears, former Packers linebacker Clay Matthews was insulting them on national TV at the draft, it was all you know what and giggles.

The shoe is officially on the other foot now  thanks to Caleb Williams two TD passes to DJ Moore and cheese grater hats. It seems to have affected the Packers so profoundly that wide receiver Romeo Doubs appeared shaken by the thought of it all during an appearance on Up & Adams with Kay Adams.

The rivalry is too intense now, apparently. They liked it much better when the Bears were passive.

Again with the Love hit by Booker, it's becoming  tiresome considering the hit Keisean Nixon made on DJ Moore when he didn't even have ball, was away from the play and not even looking at Nixon.

"When they took Jordan out of the game, that was No. 1, because  everybody in the world knows it was a dirty hit," Doubs said, failing again to note the severity of it was heightened by Love awkwardly lowering is own helmet into Booker at the last split second. "I mean again, shout out to Chicago, again a great football team, but that was No. 1.

"Obviously. Like everybody in the world saw it. I know, I saw it, you saw it and again, it was just, I think it was just the energy on both ends."

The league did fine Booker for the hit but only $5,800 bucks and some spare change. He really got fined later for the hit with his helmet made in the playoff game, one that no one seems to mention. It was a blindside hit, too. It still wasn't as bad as Nixon's hit or the dumb penalty he took for jumping on the pile after a whistle in the playoffs.

Dick Butkus and Ray Nitschke would have called all of those plays mere love taps but such is the weakened state of modern football.

Then came the topper from Doubs.

"You know, them (Bears fans) chanting Green Bay sucks before playing the Rams was just like, you know (shaking his head). I don't know," he told Adams. "It just, it's a lot, it's a lot, but the rivalry is very deep there from the fan base to the players and it's just, again, it's just so much more to it. Like, I don't even know how to really, how to break it down, but again ... if ... I don't know, I don't know."

Here's breaking news for Doubs then: Bears fans don't just chant that now at Bears games. It happens at Blackhawks games, at Bulls games, at Cubs games, and about half the gatherings of 5,000 at White Sox games, too.

It happens at non-sporting events.

Adams asked if maybe she could foster some sort of clearing of the air by getting Johnson and LaFleur together to talk things out.

"Oh my goodness," Doubs said, appearing almost at a loss for words. "I would leave ... that is not my business because that was clearly in the air as well. I would stay out of that."

There's a phrase for the Packers and their fans to remember, and certainly not all of them have feelings as tender as Doubs does, or even care, but it is this: "You reap what you sow."

The Packers for decades did the sowing, and they laughed about it at the expense of the Bears and their fans.

Ben Johnson is the reaper.

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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.