It's here. The game that could alter the trajectory of the NFL's most storied rivalry is here. It's just one game out of 17, and just the first of maybe countless matchups to come between Justin Fields and Jordan Love. But it's here. And you'd be hard-pressed to find a person, players included, who would deny the gravity of the outcome.
While one early-season game hardly defines an era, it's hard not to think of this as a franchise altering moment. With a win, the Bears and their superior quarterback finally put an end to a decades-long green and yellow reign. With a loss, the promise of a world in which the Bears rule the rivalry fades, once again, to a figment.
Here's Bears Insider Josh Schrock's prediction for Week 1:
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Chicago sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
When the schedule was released, I thought there was no way the Bears could lose this game to the Packers.
An August watching a clunky offense fail to find its rhythm behind a shifting offensive line has erased that thought from my mind.
Jordan Love looked good in the preseason. The Packers have talent on defense, employ a two-headed monster at running back, and own one of the NFL’s best offensive lines.
Last season, the Packers averaged just under 200 rushing yards per game against the Bears. The Bears’ “improved’ run defense didn’t show up in the preseason.
Bears News
Still, I don’t want to live in a Chicago where Jordan Love waltzes in and beats the Bears in the first game of the post-Aaron Rodgers era.
Justin Fields outduels Love, and Kyler Gordon seals a Week 1 win with a late interception.