Packers at Bears: How to Watch, Stream and Game Information
GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers will host the Chicago Bears to kick off the 2023 NFL season on Sunday at Soldier Field. The Packers are coming off an 8-9 season while the Bears finished 3-14. Despite the Packers’ inconsistent play, they swept the season series for a fourth consecutive year.
Here’s how to watch, stream and listen to the game, plus stats, history and other notes about this Week 1 matchup.
How to Watch Packers vs. Bears
Date and time: 3:25 p.m.
Location: Soldier Field.
TV: Fox (Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen on the call, with Erin Andrews and Tom Rinaldi on the sidelines.)
Stream: fuboTV offers more than 100 channels and a free trial.
Radio: Packers Radio Network (Wayne Larrivee and Larry McCarren), Sports USA Radio (Larry Kahn and James White) and SiriusXM channels 133 or 383.
Bears Are Favored
Betting line: The Packers are 1.5-point underdogs at FanDuel Sportsbook as of Sunday morning; it was down to a 1-point spread early Tuesday. The over/under of 41.5 points, which is down from 43.5 earlier in the week, is one of the lowest totals on the board.
Aaron Jones (+115) and Christian Watson (+125) were the favorites to score a touchdown. Now, Jones is +135, Bears quarterback Justin Fields is +155 and Packers receivers Romeo Doubs and Jayden Reed are +175.
Jordan Love’s over/unders are 210.5 yards and 1.5 touchdowns.
What You Need to Know About Packers vs. Bears
Referee: Craig Wrolstad is entering his ninth season as a referee. The visiting team is 19-15 the past two seasons. Last year, his crew called 1.76 fewer penalties that resulted in 10.46 fewer penalty yards than the average.
Injury report: Both teams enter Week 1 with good health, though Christian Watson is out for Green Bay.
Weather report: Mother Nature will not be a factor. At kickoff, it will be 74 degrees and sunny with an east wind of 8 mph.
History lesson: The Packers lead the series 104-94-6. Including the 2010 NFC Championship Game, Green Bay has won 24 of the last 29 games to flip the series. It’s all square in Chicago at 52-52-2, thanks to the Packers winning their last seven at Soldier Field.
Packers-Bears is a legendary rivalry. That doesn’t really carry over to the locker room, though. As Rasul Douglas put it: “I don’t really care. You know? I don’t have a rivalry in the NFL. Some players might feel like that. It’s like, if you’re best friends with somebody and they don’t like somebody. You don’t know why, you don’t care, you just can’t like that person because your best friend doesn’t like them. It’s kind of like that. I don’t know why they don’t like the Bears. And I don’t care. It’s just, they don’t like them, so I don’t like them.”
Aaron Jones at Chicago in 2022 (Photo by Daniel Bartel/USA Today Sports Images)
Coaches: Green Bay’s Matt LaFleur is in his fifth season and has a career record of 47-19. He is 8-0 vs. Chicago. Chicago’s Matt Eberflus is entering his second season. The Bears went 3-14 in his debut year.
In the rankings (2022): Green Bay on offense ranked 14th in points per game (21.8), 17th in passing per play (6.45) and 12th in rushing per play (4.63). On defense, it ranked 17th in points per game (21.8), 28th in passing per play (7.01) and 28th in rushing per play (4.95).
Chicago on offense ranked 23rd in points per game (19.2), 28th in passing per play (5.89) and first in rushing per play (5.40). On defense, it ranked 32nd in points per game (27.2), 32nd in passing per play (7.73) and 27th in rushing per play (4.98).
In the power rankings: At Sports Illustrated, the Packers are 18th and the Bears are 23rd.
Four-Point Stance
One: It will be Jordan Love vs. Justin Fields at quarterback. Dating to 1977, this will mark just the second time in which both teams’ starting quarterbacks are younger than 25. The last time was Brett Hundley vs. Mitchell Trubisky in 2017.
Two: The Bears led the NFL with 3,014 rushing yards in 2022. That was the fifth-most in NFL history. Fields’ 1,143 rushing yards, second-most by a quarterback all-time, led the way.
In Green Bay’s win at Chicago in December, Fields was 20-of-25 passing for 254 yards and added 71 rushing yards and a touchdown, but he threw two interceptions.
Three: The Bears bolstered their roster by adding seven veteran starters: linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and T.J. Edwards, defensive ends Yannick Ngakoue and DeMarcus Walker, defensive tackle Andrew Billings, guard Nate Davis and receiver D.J. Moore. Plus, they signed former Packers tight ends Robert Tonyan and Marcedes Lewis.
That veteran group joins what had been one of the youngest rosters in the NFL. In 2022, the Bears led the league with 6,721 snaps logged by rookies and first-year players; that was almost 1,000 more snaps than any other team.
Four: Against division foes, LaFleur is 18-6. That .750 winning percentage is No. 1 all-time among coaches with a minimum of 10 games, ahead of Hall of Famer Mike Ditka (58-25; .699), Hall of Famer Bud Grant (80-36-3; .688) and former Packers coach Mike McCarthy (51-23-2; .684). In his debut season, Eberflus dropped all six games against the NFC North.
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