At the beginning of the 2026 NFL season, the Week 5 matchup between the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears looked set to be one of the biggest regular season games on the schedule. The two teams played three thrilling games in 2025, including a Wild Card matchup that went Chicago’s way after a late comeback. As a result, FOX claimed the game and seemed confident that it would remain one of the premier matchups this season, likely set to feature it as the Game of the Week in the late afternoon time
slot.
Fast-forward a few weeks and we find that this game has been flexed out of the featured time slot and back to an early kickoff at 12 Noon Central Time. The Packers stumbled out to a 2-2 start while Bears quarterback Caleb Williams is injured and will miss the game. Instead, FOX will feature 49ers-Seahawks, another divisional battle but one between two hot teams, as the main game in the late window instead.
Still, a large portion of the USA will still be able to see Packers-Bears, particularly areas in the Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones. Fans living in the Eastern time zone, however? You may be out of luck; Giants-Commanders and Bengals-Dolphins will take up much of the Eastern seaboard and Appalachia respectively, while Vikings-Saints claims a good portion of the southeast (as well as Minnesota and the Dakotas in the Central Time zone).
Here’s this week’s broadcast map from 506sports.com, showing Packers-Bears in red:
The Packers do get a bit of an upgrade on the commentators from their last two noon games, however. Both of those games (against the Jets and Saints) got FOX’s “C” team, both with Jonathan Vilma on the call as the color commentator. This week they get the “B” squad, which features Kenny Albert and Greg Olsen on the call.
Albert is normally paired with Vilma, but he gets bumped up a notch again this week due to Olsen’s usual play-by-play partner, Joe Davis, covering baseball playoffs as FOX’s top commentator for that sport. Still, Olsen is a massive upgrade over Vilma for the ears of Packers fans this week.
As usual, Packers fans whose home TV markets get other games will need to find alternate options to watch this week’s contest. NFL Sunday Ticket is the primary option, with the service still offering a 7-day free trial for new subscribers.
