Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur is 12-3 against Chicago.
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George Halas, who founded the Chicago Bears, and Green Bay Packers co-founder Earl “Curly” Lambeau” refused to shake hands after they met twice each season.
“Shake hands! That would have been a lie,” Lambeau once said of Halas, his No. 1 rival. “If I lost, I wanted to punch Halas in the nose. If he lost, Halas wanted to punch me.”
In the 1980s, Packers coach Forrest Gregg famously told his players, “You take care of the Bears and I’ll take care of (Mike) Ditka.”
In 2021, Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers screamed at two Chicago Bears fans, “I’ve owned you all my f***ing life! I own you. I still own you.”
Yes, the NFL’s oldest rivalry is packed with countless stories of how much these two proud organizations dislike the other.
Now, for the past 21 months, Chicago head coach Ben Johnson has been poking Packers boss Matt LaFleur. Interestingly, LaFleur has taken one body blow after another, refusing to enter the ring with Johnson.
At Johnson’s introductory press conference, the Bears’ fiery new coach — who had been the offensive coordinator in Detroit — said: “To be quite frank with you, I kind of enjoyed beating Matt LaFleur twice a year.”
In the time since, Johnson has:
• Won two of his three meetings with LaFleur, both in dramatic fashion. Chicago rallied from a 16-6 deficit with 2 minutes left in Week 16, 2025, and prevailed, 22-16, in overtime. The Bears then overcame a 21-3 halftime deficit and defeated Green Bay, 31-27, in the NFC Wild Card round.
• Screamed “F*** the Packers. F*** them,” after Chicago’s playoff win over Green Bay.
• Took part in three brief, icy handshakes with LaFleur in 2025.
• And said, “Who likes the Packers?” during the 2026 NFL Scouting Combine.
LaFleur has been given multiple chances to punch back, but hasn’t put on the gloves. Instead, he insists that worrying about what Johnson has to say is wasted energy, and accomplishes nothing come kickoff.
“This game is about players,” said LaFleur, whose team hosts Chicago Sunday at noon (CST). “And so we’ll keep it about the players.”
While LaFleur has stayed quiet, some Packers certainly haven’t been amused by Johnson’s antics.
“I mean, he’s dissing us,” Green Bay left tackle Jordan Morgan said of Johnson. “He’s dissing the Packers. A lot of people in here, I’m pretty sure, take that to heart. And we got a chance to prove to everybody on Sunday that we the best team.”
When tight end Tucker Kraft was asked if Johnson screaming, “F*** the Packers” bothered him, he said: “Yes. Yeah. I guess. I talk with my pads, so I’ll just wait ‘til Sunday.”
Linebacker Zaire Franklin, in his first year with Green Bay, already seems to understand the intensity of the rivalry.
“It’s a lot of bad blood,” Franklin said. “A lot of bad blood. A lot of genuine dislike.”
Others viewed Johnson’s chatter as nothing more than hot air, insisting football games aren’t won during press conferences.
“My dad always told me, man, the loudest ones in the room, don’t be scared of them,” Green Bay defensive tackle Karl Brooks said. “They always be the quiet ones that get you. So if you’re the loudest in the room talking, just … we just got to go out there and play. It’s not about who’s talking, who’s poking at who. It’s about what the players do in between the white lines.”
Safety Evan Williams agreed.
“It’s easy to have a camera in front of you and say whatever you want,” Williams said. “You know that’s not going to stop you from getting hit in the mouth on any given Sunday. And so to me, it’s always been about the work, about how you show up on Sunday. The talk is, I mean, it’s fluff to me.”
Or as Packers center Sean Rhyan succinctly said of Johnson: “Let him talk. Doesn’t mean (expletive).”
For the most part, LaFleur’s record in this rivalry has done the talking.
LaFleur won his first 11 games against Chicago — eight with Rodgers at quarterback and three with Jordan Love. The tide has turned, though, with Chicago winning three of the last four contests — including the final two in 2025 when Green Bay had its two epic collapses.
As Green Bay’s players sat in stunned silence — trying to wrap their heads around what happened during their playoff loss to the Bears in January — Johnson was yelling “F*** the Packers” a few doors down.
“Let’s say we win that game last year, I’m sure there’d be some guys in the locker room saying the same thing (about the Bears),” Williams said.
Instead, it’s Johnson and the Bears that are doing the talking right now. And LaFleur is taking the blows instead of punching back.
It’s not the approach Lambeau, Gregg or Rodgers would have ever taken. But it’s one LaFleur is sticking with.
“I’m not the one out there playing,” LaFleur said. “So I think that’s always been my mentality, and we’re going to keep it about those guys.”
Come late Sunday afternoon, we’ll see if LaFleur’s method was the right one.
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