Inside Slant

The Sports Xchange

December 14, 2018 at 5:05 pm.

No letdown for Bears with Packers up next

After a win as dominant and important as last Sunday’s over the Los Angeles Rams, it would be understandable if the Chicago Bears had to guard this week against a letdown.

They shouldn’t.

Considering it’s Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers they face, it’s safe to say the mental edge will remain sharp. And the chance to win an NFC North title with a victory is sufficient added icing for their cake.

“We hate the Packers, with all of us,” wide receiver Anthony Miller said. “I know the fans, they hate them, as well.

“So when we go out there it’s going to be like a playoff environment, I think. It doesn’t matter what their record is. I think it’s just going to be a huge game.”

Considering Miller is a rookie, it appears the importance of beating the Packers is clear.

This year’s rookies got to experience Rodgers leading a comeback from a 20-point third-quarter deficit to beat the Bears to start this season. But that was in Green Bay.

“We came out strong in the first half on offense and then in the second half, we didn’t come out as aggressive and didn’t finish,” quarterback Mitchell Trubisky said. “So the theme this week is just finish as a team, have a great week of practice and then when we get our opportunities in the game, finish, and to help us come out with a win.”

The Bears (9-4) haven’t beaten the Packers in Chicago since 2010, which only adds to their frustration. They couldn’t even do it last year, when Rodgers sat out the game due to injury.

“Now guys like myself, Danny Trevathan, Kyle Fuller, we’ve experienced those moments where we felt like we should have won against the Packers at home,” defensive lineman Akiem Hicks said. “So we’ve got to have that chip on our shoulder as far as the guys that have been there before, but for everyone else it’s a new experience, right? And they get to approach it like it’s another team and go out there and play our best football.”

Special teams ace Sherrick McManis, who must play nickel corner now with Bryce Callahan done for the year with a broken foot, recalls plenty of disappointments against the Packers (5-7-1) at home or away. He’s been around since the Lovie Smith era and is the Bear with the longest tenure.

“It’d mean a lot,” he said of beating Green Bay for the division title. “It’s something I haven’t done since I’ve been here.”

The hard part is getting past Rodgers. He led the 24-23 win in the season opener and the lid-lifter to Matt Nagy’s career as head coach. Rodgers left in the first half with a knee injury, only to return.

“You always remember all your losses, way more than you remember your wins,” Nagy said. “And they sting. Especially when you have the lead like we did and we didn’t finish like we needed to.

“They remember that, they feel it. And I want them to remember that. Because sometimes when you go on through the season and you have success like we’ve had, you can forget that sting. And I don’t want them to forget that sting because we’ve got a ways to go yet here.”

Now Rodgers has played through the knee injury and has thrown just one interception all season in 495 attempts.

“That’s impressive,” Nagy said. “That’s hard to do. He’s a guy that’s seen a lot of different defenses. He’s been in that offense for a long time so the game has slowed to him.

“And he’s got that extreme talent. He has one of the best arms ever that this game has ever had. So he’s got a great mentality, he goes about this game in the right way. But it doesn’t surprise me one bit.”

Rodgers, who turned 35 two weeks ago, appears to have stoked the flames for the Bears heading into this game with comments just after Thanksgiving. He obviously meant no disrespect, but the Bears took it that way. A team can get overly sensitive to such things when they’ve lost to one team and one player so often.

“We’re going to have to find a way to win a game on the road,” Rodgers said. “We’re 0-6 on the road. So we’ve just got to go back home, get some rest, beat Arizona and then come back and beat Atlanta, then go to Chicago – a place we’ve won a number of times – beat them, go to New York around Christmas, beat them and then come home against Detroit, beat them. Get a little help.”

Rodgers’ point was more about how the Packers had to figure out how to win on the road to make the playoffs, and then they lost a home game to Arizona and head coach Mike McCarthy was fired with Joe Philbin taking over.

Nevertheless, the comment was noted at Halas Hall.

“You’re always listening right?” Hicks said. “You’re always listening to what people have to say, and that goes for people, the talking heads on TV, too. We’ve been listening to them for years.”

Besides, some Bears have played with chips on their shoulders all season about perceived disrespect from media and former players like Deion Sanders, former Packer James Jones and anyone else who said anything on television. So they had a field day after beating the Rams, considering no one expected it to happen.

“We look forward to the challenge and we look forward to stepping up and meeting whatever adversity we have coming at us,” Hicks said.

And, oh yeah, there’s that matter of clinching a playoff berth with their first division title since 2010.

“It’s something that this city hasn’t seen for a while and we’re just bringing it back,” Miller said. “We’re bringing a winning mentality back and the train is not going to stop rolling.”

SERIES HISTORY: 196th regular-season meeting. Packers lead series, 96-93-6. The Bears have lost five straight to the Packers, and nine of the last 10. The Bears last beat Green Bay at Soldier Field in 2010.

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