It’s Been Decades Since Packers Faced This Scheduling Quirk

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Bears on Sunday, Dec. 7. The rematch will come on Saturday night at Soldier Field.

That’s two games against a bitter rival in a span of 13 days, a scheduling quirk not seen by the Packers in exactly 40 years.(There was an even bigger scheduling rarity in 1993; more on that in a moment.)

In 1985, the Packers lost 23-7 at Chicago on a Monday night. The Packers struck first but William “The Refrigerator” Perry scored the go-ahead touchdown on a 1-yard run. Thirteen days later, the Bears won again 16-10 at Lambeau Field. Perry scored on a 4-yard touchdown catch and Walter Payton’s 27-yard touchdown run proved to be the winning score in a game marked by cheap shots by Mark Lee and Ken Stills.

Rather than Forrest Gregg vs. Mike Ditka, it will be Matt LaFleur vs. Ben Johnson on the sidelines on Saturday night. From their perspective, it’s been an easier week since so much of the film review carries over.

“I would say there’s less to comb through, absolutely, because you already did it one time,” LaFleur said. “You’re certainly looking at the game that we played against each other. You’re certainly looking at what they did versus Cleveland [on Sunday], but outside of that, there’s nothing more to really look at. You definitely go back and look at some of the stuff, but there’s just not as much that we haven’t seen, I would say.”

The challenge comes in knowing that a certain alignment out of a certain personnel package in a certain down-and-distance situation that the defense might have been ready for two weeks ago could work against it now.

“For sure, for sure,” safety Xavier McKinney said. “You cannot just go into the game thinking they going to do exactly the same things that they did last week. I don’t think it’s going to work like that. And I think they have smart enough coaches and smart enough players on the team to understand that they can’t just go in with the same mindset.

“A lot of this stuff, it probably will be the same, but they’re going to have a few here and there that they might pull from different games that they’ve seen us play, or different things that they’ve been running that they want to pull out. So, I think all things are on the table when it comes to this game.”

Running back Josh Jacobs, whose critical third-down run set up the decisive touchdown at Lambeau Field, said it will be a “chess match.”

“You don’t know what they going to come at you with, obviously, because some of the things that they might have game-planned for last game that didn’t work, obviously, they going to throw that out and try to counter on things that we did well,” he said. “It’s a chess match. That’s kind of how it is when these games are this close and it also comes down to the players. Who want it more? So, we going to see who want it more.”

In regular-season play, the Packers haven’t faced the same opponent twice in a span of three weeks since facing Chicago in Weeks 15 and 17 of the 1998 season. In 1995, the Packers in a four-week stretch played Detroit in Week 6, Minnesota in Week 7, Detroit in Week 8 and Minnesota in Week 9.

Nothing is as weird as 1993, though. The Packers lost at Detroit in the final game of the regular season but beat them in a playoff rematch six days later on Brett Favre’s unforgettable touchdown pass to Sterling Sharpe.

“I don’t really think it’s about the time limit of 13 days,” cornerback Keisean Nixon said. “I think it’s hard to beat a team twice regardless, especially in the division but it can be anybody. You play a team twice, it’s hard to beat a team twice in the league. It’s going to be a challenge.”

McKinney agreed.

Green Bay Packers safety Xavier McKinney intercepts a pass against the Bears at Lambeau Field last season. | Tork Mason / USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

“It’s difficult to play a team twice in the regular season in general,” he said, “but playing them twice in that short of a span can definitely be more difficult and challenging. Because, obviously, we’ve seen each other not too long ago, and we’re already division opponents, so we know each other’s tendencies. So, we’re just going to have to get creative. I think both sides are going to have to get creative.”

That probably will be easier considering the circumstances.

The Bears will line up without two of their top three receivers, Rome Odunze and Luther Burden III. While Odunze was out for the first matchup, Burden had a strong performance in Green Bay. On the other hand, top linebacker Tremaine Edmunds was on injured reserve for the first game but is expected to start on Saturday.

The Packers, obviously, will have to adjust without Micah Parsons.

“Micah is out,” Bears coach Ben Johnson told reporters this week. “You’re trying to forecast what they might do to match certain personnel groups or slow down our run game. That's a difficult thing to do when that injury happened last game. We have to be prepared to adjust and play accordingly.”

The Packers presumably will use some of their 2024 defensive playbook; Johnson no doubt has looked into it.

“We’re going to have to be more creative, and I’m sure they’re going to be a little bit more creative, too,” McKinney said. “So, you got to kind of be ready for the unknowns. And that’s kind of another challenge of it. You don’t want to go into the game thinking that, ‘OK, we saw them a week ago, they going to do the same thing.’

“Nah, that ain’t necessarily true. They might have some things that are the same, but they’re going to have some new things as well that we’re going to have to be, I’m not going to say prepared for, but we’re going to have to have disciplined eyes and understand we’ve got to trust our technique and whatever is being called.”

The Bears, obviously, will have to adjust after being torched for two touchdowns by Christian Watson.

“I think they’ll adjust to certain situations,” Watson said. “I think like any team would. But we’ll be ready for anything that they throw at us. I mean we’ve seen a lot of different looks. They showed some different looks last week when they were playing the Browns. So, we’ll be ready for whatever kind of adjustments they try to make.”

Two weeks ago, quarterback Jordan Love threw three touchdown passes of 20-plus yards as the Packers grabbed first place in the NFC North. They’ll have to do it again to recapture the division lead.

“It’s an interesting week” he said. “We literally just game-planned for these guys, just played them two weeks ago. I think everything’s still fresh on your mind with what they’re doing schematically on defense and kind of see what we did in that game and what our game plan was going into it and, obviously, be able to carry over some of the plays we didn’t even end up running in the game.

“Yeah, it’s weird playing a team twice in three weeks, but it’s a big game so we’re treating it just like another one but everything’s still fresh on your mind, I’d say.”

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