There's no question, Packers-Bears is the most storied rivalry in the National Football League. But you might have to be on social security – yes, older than 65; maybe even 70 – to fully understand why.
While the rivalry is 104 years old, this Saturday's wild-card playoff is certainly the biggest game between the two teams since their 2010 NFC Championship Game and maybe since their Nov. 17, 1963, regular-season showdown when the soon-to-be 11-1-2 Bears beat the 11-2-1 Packers and went on to win the NFL title.
After all, in the 2010 playoff, the Bears started Jay Cutler at quarterback and finished it with third-stringer Caleb Hannie. In hindsight, it seems like that game, as important as it was at the time, turned out to be nothing more than the expanded playoffs of the current age fogging up history.
For the Packers, their 21-14 victory was another stepping stone enroute to winning Super Bowl XLV. But was that Soldier Field clash even the most memorable of that season from either rival's standpoint?
As for this Saturday's only-third-ever postseason matchup between the Packers and Bears, it might well serve as the much-needed shot in the arm their ageless rivalry needs after decades of dormancy. But the chances of that happening might have been better if Micah Parsons and a few other headliners were healthy.
Perhaps more realistically, if the game turns out to be another fiercely contested, down-to-the-wire battle, this season's three Packers-Bears games collectively could serve as a watershed in the history of the rivalry. A new dawning, of sorts.
Certainly, both teams hold the promise of being perennial contenders at least into the near future.
To be clear, the rivalry has never lost its spice and dash thanks to Gregg-Ditka; "The Refrigerator;" less than pious quarterbacks like Jim McMahon and Brett Favre; quotes such as "I own the Bears;" and occasional games like the "Marcol Miracle," the "Instant Replay" game and the "Monday Night Monsoon" game.
But the free-fall of the rivalry in terms of drama has been worse than you maybe even realize. It started in 1968 and had been ongoing up until the Dec. 7, 2025, thriller won by the Packers and followed closely by the Dec. 20, 2025, overtime thriller won by Bears.
Consider the following over those 67 seasons from 1968-2024. The '68 season was the first following Vince Lombardi's resignation as Packers coach after winning five NFL championships in the previous seven years with George Halas' Bears being a serious contender at times and a persistent menace throughout.
Both teams finished with a winning record in the same season only five times: 1994, '95, 2001, '10 and '12.
In fact, from 1968-93, a span of 26 seasons, there wasn't a single time when both teams finished over .500.
Neither team finished with a winning record 13 times: 1968, '70, '71, '73, '74, '75, '76, '80, '81, '83, '99, 2017, '22.
From 1968-78, both teams were bad. Only the 10-4 1972 Packers and 10-6 1979 Bears made the playoffs among the 22 teams fielded by the two franchises during that period; and those two teams went a combined 0-2 in the postseason.
Thereafter, there were two dominant cycles to the series. From 1979-91, the Bears went 17-7, including eight straight wins at one point. From 1992-2024, the Packers were 50-16 in regular-season games, winning 20 of the last 23, including 11 in a row.
Despite the addition of wild-card teams to the playoffs in 1970 and the total number from both conferences increasing over the years from two to six, this will be only the second postseason game between the Packers and Bears in the 56 seasons since.
But that's not all that unusual. The Bears have never played Detroit in the postseason and played Minnesota only once. The Packers have played the Lions and Vikings only twice each. And the Lions and Vikings have never met in the playoffs, either.
While over the years such matchups as Pittsburgh-Oakland, New York Giants-Washington, Dallas-San Francisco, even Green Bay-Minnesota, Baltimore-Pittsburgh and several others of that ilk have received more primetime showings and hype at various times, none have the history of Packers-Bears.
The two franchises have won the most NFL titles: the Packers, a league-record 13; the Bears, nine. They have the most inductees in the Pro Football Hall of Fame: the Bears, 32; the Packers, 29.
And there was a time when the rivalry – just their regular-season games alone – all but determined the NFL champion. From 1929-46, either the Bears or Packers won 12 of 17 NFL titles; and starting in 1933, when the NFL split into two divisions, one or the other played in 11 of the first 12 NFL Championship Games.
Back then, Packers-Bears could be even bigger than the NFL title game in the eyes of fans.
On Dec. 7, 1941, the final day of the NFL's regular season and what turned out to be Pearl Harbor Day, the Bears beat the Chicago Cardinals to finish 10-1 and force a playoff for the Western Division title against the 10-1 Packers.
At 9:30 the next morning, less than 24 hours after the tragic bombing of Pearl Harbor, long lines of fans had formed at the Bears' two box offices and all tickets were sold within four hours.
On game day, Dec. 14, a standing-room-only crowd of 43,425 filled Wrigley Field to watch the Bears beat the Packers, 33-14, in 16-degree weather – and in what arguably is still the biggest game in the history of the rivalry.
The next day, tickets for the NFL championship between the Bears and New York Giants, scheduled for the next Sunday at Wrigley Field, went on sale again at 9 a.m. This time, there was no rush for tickets. The fans knew, as the Chicago Tribune's Ed Prell explained in that morning's paper, the Bears had all but won the title by beating Green Bay in the division playoff.
The Giants-Bears title game was played on Dec. 21, an unseasonably warm, 47-degree day, and only 13,341 people were in the stands at Wrigley as the Bears coasted to a 37-9 victory in an anticlimactic NFL Championship Game.
