Well, my fellow APC'ers, it is time for another Packers series history story. This time, I will be covering Green Bay's history against their most hated rival, the Chicago Bears.
Unlike the write-ups for the histories against the Lions or Vikings, I will not be making multiple series history write-ups for this one. Even if I were to combine the whole series history and divide it like I did the Lions or Vikings series, I would have to write probably close to several thousand words. So I will just do a series history overview between the Packers and Bears. This is because I was not making these write-ups at the beginning of the season. Next year...
More after the jump.
The Packers and Bears have been playing nearly every season since 1921. The Bears currently lead the regular season series 91-84-6, and the playoff series is tied 1-1. The Chicago Staleys won that game 20-0. In 1922, the Staleys became the Bears, but they did not play the Packers that season. Until the latter half of the 1928 season, the Bears won 6 games, the Packers won 1, and the teams tied 3 times. The Packers went on a long winning streak in their first championship run from 1929-1931, but the Bears got the better of the Packers more often than not up until 1961.
When Vince Lombardi became Packers head coach in 1959, his first game as coach was a 9-6 Packers win over the Bears. From 1961-1972, the Packers won the vast majority of the games against the Bears, losing only five times to Chicago in that stretch. After three straight series splits, the Bears once again became the dominant team in the series, and this generally continued until the 1992 season.
1980 was a notable season in the series. In the first game, in Green Bay, Chester Marcol attempted a game-winning field goal, which the Bears blocked. The ball came right back to Marcol, however, and he ran into the end zone for a game-winning touchdown and a 12-6 Packers overtime win. Later on that season, the Bears handed the Packers their worst defeat ever, 61-7, in Chicago. The strike in 1982 caused the cancellation of both Packers-Bears games, the only time since the teams became division rivals that the teams didn't play during the regular season.
In 1992, Favre became the Packers quarterback, beginning a long period of Packers dominance over the Bears. The Packers won all but three games over the Bears from 1993-2003, and won every game in Chicago from 1994-2004. Beginning in early 2004, the Bears briefly became dominant, but in 2008, the Packers once again started winning the majority of games, having taken five of seven regular season matchups since then.
In the playoffs, the series, as mentioned earlier, is 1-1. The Bears won the first game after the 1941 season by the score of 33-14. Played a week after the attack at Pearl Harbor, the Bears won and earned a berth in the NFL Championship (which they won). The next playoff game was after the 2010 season. The Bears had won the division, and the Packers finished a game back. After beating the Eagles and Falcons, the Packers went into Chicago and beat the Bears 21-14, going on to win the Super Bowl two weeks later.
What are your memories of the Packers playing the Bears?