For years, the Chicago Bears have looked to regain consistent footing against the Green Bay Packers, simply trying to steal a game here or there to maintain credibility. This year is different. The Bears have won three out of the last four games against the Packers, including a dramatic 31-27 victory in January’s playoff matchup. This year there are expectations.
Despite the early shapes of each team’s season to this point, the Bears are still only a modest 1 game ahead of the Packers in the standings.
In fact, if the Packers were to pull off a victory on Sunday, they would leapfrog the Bears in the standings.
The Bears enter the game with the presumed starter at QB being Tyson Bagent, the backup QB who threw for 268 yards and an INT last week while leading the Bears to a steady victory. The Bears running back duo of Swift and Monangai pounded the rock against the Jets to a combined tune of 204 yards and 2 TDs (with Monangai doing most of the damage at 146 yards and both TDs). Even with Kyle Monangai’s health in question, expect the Bears to continue to run the ball effectively against a Packers defense missing their stud LB Edgerrin Cooper.
Meanwhile, the Green Bay Packers have been signing seemingly every free agent OL in an effort to cobble together a unit that can go from “terrible” to “below average”. The additions of Kevin Zeitler and Laken Tomlinson helped last week during their victory against Tampa Bay, 17-14. They hit their high water mark of 86 rushing yards and managed to keep Jordan Love from taking a sack. While these are genuine improvements, the Bucs have the worst rated DL in the league and have only recorded 6 sacks through four games.
Rivalry games are always tricky to predict, and this one might be even more difficult given Tyson Bagent’s start, Kyle Monangai’s injury status (dealing with a turf toe injuryper Jeremy Fowler), and the new OL acclimating to the Green Bay offense.
Our partners at FanDuel Sportsbookhave the Bears as a 1.5 road favorite, a slim number indicative of the factors above and the streak of close games between these two teams. Still, I think the biggest difference in this one is Ben Johnson over Matt LaFleur. Johnson has consistently shown the ability to adapt to the situation, and the Bears continue to find ways to win. The Packers, on the other hand, have had an almost comical run of finding ways to lose (and almost lose) since the middle of the 2025 season. I think the Bears win by ten, and I don’t think it feels that close in the end. The Bears are also second in the league at 7.8 points per game in the 1st quarter, and the Packers are 19th at 4.0 points per game in the 1st quarter. As such, I’ll take the 1st quarter spread of -1.5 on the Bears.
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