After two decades of ostracism, the Chicago Bears, one of the oldest franchises in the NFL, have once again put on the winning outfit. One of the great capitals of American sports has been excited for weeks about a team that has not won the title since 1985 and has not won a playoff game since 2011, a drought that was broken by defeating the Green Bay Packers in epic fashion, the historic rival that has been tormenting them for years. This is how the team of impossible comebacks has sneaked in with a quarterback second year among the eight survivors of the league, a fairy tale for which he will look for one more chapter on Sunday night (00:30 hours on Monday in Spain) against the Los Angeles Rams.
In a 17-day calendar in which the rivals change every year, each team has two unavoidable dates with the three rivals in its division. Of the eight in the NFL, the Bears discuss the NFC North with the Minnesota Vikings, the Detroit Lions and the Packers, their bete noire, the one with the most division titles in recent times. Since 1921, these two franchises have formed the oldest rivalry in the league, the most repeated and, until the beginning of the century, quite even. Things changed with both of them. quarterbacks Hall of Fame players who led the Packers for three decades: Brett Favre and, above all, Aaron Rodgers, who told Chicago fans after beating them in 2021 that he owned them. With a solid statistical base. From 2009 to 2025, Wisconsin had won 29 of the 35 games between them, including a streak of 11 in a row. In that journey, the Packers not only took over the head-to-head (109 wins, 98 losses and 6 draws), but they overtook Chicago as the team with the most wins in NFL history.
The Bears have eight NFL titles, but only one in the Super Bowl era, inaugurated in 1967. They won the twentieth edition in 1986 against the New England Patriots and did not return to the final until they did so, with a loss, against Peyton Manning’s Indianapolis Colts, in 2007. Their last playoff victory was in January 2011 against the Seattle Seahawks: it was enough to play in the conference final against the Packers, who They gave the surprise—they started as the sixth seed and eliminated the first seed at home—and then won the Superbowl. Since then, every time Chicago raised its head in the early part of the schedule, it received a slam of the door from its archenemy. A movie that was repeated this year in its first game, dominated by Green Bay with a solvency that does not illustrate the final 28-21.
History changed on December 20. The Packers and Bears met in Chicago on the penultimate day: the winner would be second in the conference and the loser would fall to seventh place – the last in the playoff – and would play all the rounds in a single game away from home. Duel dominated by the Green Bay defense that led 6-16 in the final minutes. To turn it around, the Bears had to try a onside kicka restart kick that instead of giving the ball to the opponent seeks to recover it and whose success rate does not reach 10%. The ball slipped out of the hands of a rival receiver and Chicago took advantage of it to tie the game with a touchdown and win it in overtime with another. In the end, 22-16.
The prize for winning the division was receiving the Packers in the first round. Once again, long faces in the stands at Soldier Field for a game that went 6-21 into the fourth quarter. Events once again led the Bears to a terminal play, a 4th down in which your quarterbackCaleb Williams, fumbled the ball off-balance before being hunted and found the receiver, Odunze, between three opposing defenders. With their heads still on the guillotine, they scored two touchdowns more and maintained the advantage with a defense on their own goal area with the clock at zero. Squaring the circle—taking advantage of the missed kicks of the rival kicker, Brandon McManuss—and an epic 31-27 that led his coach, Ben Johnson, to shout unceremoniously in the locker room: “Fuck the Packers!”.
A feeling that one of the leaders of his defense, Austin Booker, expresses with more composure in a video conference with Spanish media – the Bears are one of the three franchises with commercial rights in Spain – before facing the Rams: “It’s great to give the city a reason to fight. The atmosphere is incredible, everyone is very excited to win once and for all.” In the 40 years since their only Super Bowl, the rest of the teams—the Bulls in basketball, the Blackhawks in hockey, as well as the Cubs and the White Sox in baseball—have won championships. Between round numbers and all the circumstances that have occurred in recent weeks, he is not averse to the idea of being the team of destiny. “I would love to think about it. But it’s God’s plan, whatever he has in mind. Coming back from seven games is pretty crazy and everything happens for a reason. We’ll see.” Of their 11 victories this season, seven were lost in the last quarter.
Something that Booker does not consider casual, since preseason exercises. “Everyone has to do 40 down-ups [flexiones hasta ponerse de pie] to play defense. We do a lot of things to create that atmosphere, we are resilient. You’re going to have to play 60 minutes or we probably have you.” Fight and also concentration. “There are many opportunities to screw up in the playoffs and good teams know how to take advantage of it.” The last factor to knock down the Rams, accustomed to an indoor field and the California sun, is the wind and cold of Soldier Field, something that the Packers felt, who saw how their sideline heater broke down on their first visit to Chicago. “We’re used to it simply by living and training here. It’s up to them whether it ends up being a factor or not. Maybe they are not used to it or they don’t like the cold.” The heart of that ancient temple, in the heart of the city, with imminent replacement plans, still has a beat left.
