Bears-Packers: Get Your Hate On!

The first game of the Bears 2009 regular season opens Sunday night, against the Most Hated Green Bay Packers, marking the beginning of another chapter in professional football's oldest and most contentious rivalries. How has this matchup remained so intense for nearly a century?

We're not in rivalling cities. Green Bay isn't a city. Or even near one. If it weren't for the concrete and steel enclosing it, Lambeau Field would be indistinguishable from the 10,000 acres of pasture that surrounds it. Even Milwaukee, with its Packer faithful and all-consuming inferiority complex, is closer to Chicago than Green Bay.

It's not football philosophies. One of the few points that Bears and Packers fans grudgingly agree on is style. Not clothing styles, as the Packer uniform appears to have been 'designed' largely by condiments that spilled off a bratwurst. Green and Gold? Nah, that's mustard and relish.

But we do share a passion for football the way it's meant to be played. Down and dirty, in the trenches, fists and elbows flying. We both frown on excessive celebrations just for doing your job. Even the 'Lambeau Leap' seems like a harmless connection with the fans when compared to the silly machinations (often accompanied by props), that mark everything from touchdowns, sacks, and routine completions in some of the NFL's less storied franchises.

It's all about the games. And these two teams have had some memorable ones. Depending on your age, the names alone bring you back to the emotions you felt watching them battle: Nietscke, Butkus, Payton, Charles Martin, McMahon, Favre...

When you hear them dozens of image flood the mind, and accelerate the pulse. There are no routine games between these teams, wherever they are in the standings when they meet.

Sunday Night

Sunday's prime-time opener shows lots of promise, as an addition to the history book. Packers fans, most of whom have burned their No. 4 jerseys in fits of pique (or for heat) have embraced the Aaron Rodgers era, as the second coming of Favre. They can't help it, there's little to do during a Wisconsin winter outside of drinking, ice-fishing, and obsessing about football, preferably all at the same time.

Meanwhile Bears fans have a quarterback they're ready to deify, after enduring decades of forgettable leaders at the helm (apologies to Peter Tom Willis). Jay Cutler, with a win against Green Bay Sunday, can have the keys to the city, our undying love, and permission to keep our daughters out until dawn.

Much has been made of the Packers new 3-4 scheme, the Green Bay faithful truly believe it will elevate their defense after last year's anemic performance. Like many things Packer, it's been overestimated. It's still 11 guys on the field, and the Bears (and Cutler) have had plenty of opportunity to see it elsewhere.

I believe this game will be won or lost in the secondary. Their crafty, but aging veterans, against our speedy but unproven youth. That's on both sides of the ball. If our veterans in the defensive backfield are up to speed at game time, I think we take this late in the game.

As much as Aaron Rodgers and the Packers offense has been hailed for their preseason offensive output, last year Green Bay had a tendency to run out of steam before the fourth quarter ended. It remains to be seen if they can finish a ballgame.

Come Sunday night in Green Bay they'll be tailgating, leaving the cheese fields to be harvested another day, or however that works. In Chicago, people will gather around big screens in bars, clubs, and homes.

I'll be here in Ottawa, making my own Italian Beef sandwiches from a roast that's been in my freezer three weeks waiting for this night. They don't have them up here.

All of us eager to watch the next chapter in the story, as it unfolds.

Go Bears.