The Chicago Bears are on the road to face the Carolina Panthers in Week 1, and you might not realize it, but this is a battle between two defending division champs. The Bears took the North (and are never gonna give it back), while the Panthers won the NFC South. Sure, Carolina won it at (8-9) while Chicago went (11-6), but first place is still first place, and it was the Panthers’ first one since 2015, so kudos to them! For the record, it was the Bears’ first division title since 2018, so both franchises
hope to have turned a corner.
The Panthers also nearly knocked off the Rams last season in the Wildcard round, but thanks to an L.A. touchdown with just 38 seconds left in the game, they were sent home 34 to 31.
Speaking on the Rams, they played like a bunch of stuffed and buggered bludgers on Thursday in Australia!
These two teams will always be linked because of the trade, which prompted the article below and, of course, also led to the Bears getting Caleb Williams.
GAME INFO
The Bears and Panthers will kick off at 12:00 pm CT from Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina. There’s a chance of a thunderstorm, and the high will be 90 °.
TELEVISION
The game will be on FOX with Adam Amin and Drew Brees on the call, and if you live in the blue area of this 506sports.com map, then you’ll get to see the game.
With Adam Amin on the call this Sunday, our guy Bill Zimmerman asked him to jump on his podcast to help break things down. You can check out the podcast version here or the video version here. Adam was fantastic, as always, so those are a can’t-miss!
RADIO
ESPN Chicago (1000 AM, 100.3 FM HD2) with Jeff Joniak (play-by-play), Tom Thayer (analyst), and Jason McKie (sideline) on the call, and LATINO MIX 93.5 FM (Spanish) with Omar Ramos.
ODDS
The visiting Bears are a 3-point favorite, with the game total over/under at 47.5.
PREVIEWS
We’ve previewed the game from all angles here at Windy City Gridiron, so scroll through our articles for those, but we also have some in-depth previews on our 2nd City Gridiron Channels. Here’s our latest from Taylor Doll featuring Alex Zietlow, who is on the Panthers beat for the Charlotte Observer, and WCG’s own Jeff Berckes.
PODCAST
VIDEO
POSTGAME
Our day-after Bears game recap show is back for another season, so tune in for Bear & Balanced this Monday at 6:00 pm CT for a cooled-down review of the game with Jeff Berckes and Lester A. Wiltfong Jr. Once we press stop on the show, you can catch the audio on our podcast channel.
We’ll have plenty of pregame and postgame content all season long on our 2nd City Gridiron channels. The podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, Audacy, and all other popular podcast platforms, so be sure to hit subscribe wherever you get your audio. Our YouTube home is also called 2nd City Gridiron, so subscribe there for our pods and other video content.
