Having played each other 198 times, the Bears and Packers wouldn’t seem to have any secrets. If you’ve lived next door to a guy for 100 years, you’ve likely caught glimpses of him in his tighty-whities, to your everlasting horror.
Yet if there’s a word hovering over Thursday’s season opener between two of the NFL’s oldest teams, it’s “mysterious.’’ There are lots of unknowns. Questions outnumber answers 3-to-1. Everything seems password-protected. For example:
-- Most Bears starters didn’t see action in the preseason. Quarterback Mitch Trubisky, who had an uneven training camp heading into his third season, handed off the ball a few times. Will the Bears be chipping away rust at Soldier Field on Thursday night? Will we see big-time development from Trubisky?
-- Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers didn’t play in the preseason, meaning he hasn’t communicated with new coach Matt LaFleur during a game while running a new offense. So they’ve pretty much met once over coffee after connecting through eHarmony.
-- Bears kicker Eddy Pineiro hasn’t attempted a field goal or an extra point in an NFL game, which only matters if you think the kicking game is an issue after Cody Parkey’s double-doink playoff miss last season. It matters like air matters.
-- With a foundation of Khalil Mack, Akiem Hicks, Eddie Jackson, Roquan Smith, Danny Trevathan and Eddie Goldman, you could appoint the equipment manager as defensive coordinator and the Bears’ defense would be really good. There’s not going to be a massive dropoff from Vic Fangio, now the Broncos head coach, to Chuck Pagano, his replacement. But if communication is a question with Rodgers and LaFleur, fairness demands that it be one for Pagano and the Bears’ defense.
-- Let’s not forget Matt Nagy’s whodunit play-calling, which usually includes a glittering handful of trick plays. What craziness will the Bears head coach inject into the proceedings Thursday? The answer is a question the Packers have to be asking: Who knows?
The Chicago Bears trick plays are back pic.twitter.com/X5wx7Ewx2B
— No Huddle NFL (@NoHuddle_NFL) January 6, 2019
So this isn’t the normal buildup to a Bears-Packers game. There’s a large dose of mystery to go with the pomp surrounding the start of the NFL’s 100th season. Nagy has spent the past week or so trying to make his players understand that this is just another game, that the field is the same size and that, even though the Bears lost to Green Bay in the opener last season, they finished with a 12-4 record. See? Life goes on after Week 1.
But Nagy has to know that it won’t be business as usual Thursday night. It can’t be. On Tuesday, the Bears unveiled 12-foot, 3,000-pound statues of team founder George Halas and Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton outside Soldier Field. It will give Thursday a “Night at the Museum’’ feel. Would you be surprised if Bronko Nagurski chugs out of a smoky tunnel late in the fourth quarter? Me neither.
Even beyond all the shiny surface stuff, this won’t be another game, not in the context of the high expectations for Nagy’s team. The coach surely has Super Bowl aspirations. The city certainly does. Last season’s division title and excruciatingly abrupt playoff loss to the Eagles made everybody want more. More officially starts Thursday night on the lake.
More suggests that the Bears are supposed to dispatch of the Packers as they would a mouse, by the tail into a garbage can. But that’s not how this works, not with Rodgers running things. He’s 16-5 against the Bears, with 45 touchdown passes, 10 interceptions and a passer rating of 105.9. There’s the mystery of how he’ll do with a new head coach calling plays, and then there’s history. Virginia McCaskey might be the principal owner of the Bears, but Rodgers owns them.
Getting past Rodgers, who came back from a second-quarter knee injury to stun them in last year’s opener at Lambeau Field, would help set a tone for the Bears. Win and the town will be giddy. Lose and some fans will walk into Lake Michigan with the intention of not turning back.
So there’s a lot going on here, and for the past month, we’ve analyzed all of it from every angle known to man. For that reason alone, it’s time to play football. It’s time to find to start to find out if the Bears are who they say they are. It’s time to find out if Trubisky is who they say he is.
It’s time to find out what’s what.
One thing is sure: Nobody knows for sure.
