A playoff showdown with Green Bay that will define how this entire Chicago Bears season is remembered.
It wasn’t pretty on Sunday as the Chicago Bears fell 19–16 to the Detroit Lions in the regular season finale.
Dan Campbell and company completed the regular-season sweep of Ben Johnson — the former Lions offensive coordinator turned Bears head coach. But now it’s on to bigger and better things for Chicago.
While the Lions head to locker clean-out day and vacation, the Bears are preparing for a home playoff game at Soldier Field. Even with the loss, Chicago locked up the No. 2 seed in the NFC thanks to Washington’s win over Philadelphia.
We got what we asked for.
The Green Bay Packers are coming to Soldier Field on Wild Card Weekend for just the third all-time playoff meeting between these two storied rivals.
With the No. 2 seed, the Bears are guaranteed another home playoff game in the Divisional Round — should they advance. They also draw a more favorable matchup on paper with Green Bay and avoid the NFC West heavyweights...for now.
But I’m not afraid to call it like it is. Round 3 against the Packers this weekend is an all-or-nothing game.
And I don’t mean that literally. It’s the playoffs — obviously it’s win or go home.
I’m talking about the season as a whole. How it will be remembered. What the vibes around the Chicago Bears will feel like all offseason.
When the Bears pulled off a miraculous overtime comeback against Green Bay at Soldier Field earlier this year and took control of the NFC North, it felt like a weight was lifted off the city. Chicago was buzzing. At long last, the Bears had a head coach. A franchise quarterback. And they reclaimed bragging rights in a rivalry that had brought this fan base nothing but pain for more than a decade.
The Bears beat the Packers twice in the 2025 calendar year.
They also had just two total wins against Green Bay from 2014 through 2024.
From the start of 2009 through the end of 2024, the Bears went an impossible 4–28 against their biggest rival — a stretch that included a crushing home loss in the NFC Championship Game before the Packers went on to win the Super Bowl.
But finally, it feels like the tide may be turning. But we can’t lie about the stakes this weekend.
A loss to the Packers on Saturday would inarguably negate a lot of the progress we’ve seen this season.
Not from a literal standpoint. The Bears still have a tremendous core to build around. With Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson in Chicago, this team will play in plenty more big games.
But the 2025 season has been magical.
Fans didn’t know what to expect, and they got an 11-win team. An NFC North title — the first since 2018. Last-second victories. Miraculous comebacks. A team that defied everything we thought we knew about Chicago Bears football.
It’s a season Bears fans will look back on fondly… as long as they beat the Packers.
If this year ends with consecutive losses at Soldier Field — first to Detroit, then a playoff loss to Green Bay — this season's memory will sour quickly. It becomes another painful “what could have been,” and another chapter of hope being crushed just when expectations finally felt justified.
If you’re a Bears fan who disagrees with that, well...you’re probably lying to yourself.
Games against the Packers just mean more.
And the fact that this is only the third playoff meeting in the rivalry’s history tells you everything you need to know about how rare — and how important — moments like this are. The pride, the bragging rights, the momentum attached to this game can’t be measured.
Nor can the confidence it gives whoever walks off the field victorious. That’s why this truly is all or nothing.
A loss means eight long months replaying missed opportunities and enduring screenshots on social media of the final score from a fan base no true Chicagoan can tolerate.
But a win? A win sends the Bears to the Divisional Round with confidence surging. It guarantees another playoff game at Soldier Field. It potentially sets up a matchup with Philadelphia or Carolina — and gives this fan base the leverage it hasn't had in decades.
A trump card in the rivalry, no matter what comes next.
Those are the stakes. The biggest Bears game since that NFC Championship Game all those years ago. A game powerful enough to erase everything good about this season — or slingshot the team toward Super Bowl LX.
I get nervous just thinking about it.
The Bears and Packers kick off from Soldier Field on Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. CST.