Heading into their Week 11 matchup at Soldier Field, the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears have played one another an NFL-record 208 times, all but two of those meetings occurring during the regular season.
The two teams split the pair of postseason games, with Chicago taking a Divisional Playoff win in 1941 and Green Bay winning the NFC Championship Game of the 2010 campaign.
The Packers currently hold the overall edge, but that wasn’t always the case. In fact, at the turn of the century, the Bears held an 83-70-6 advantage. But starting with the 2000 season, Green Bay has won 37 of the last 49 contests, turning the tables to take a 107-95-6 lead.
Aaron Rodgers, of course, played a big part in this turnaround, winning 25 of 30 starts against the Monsters of the Midway, including the last eight before being traded to the New York Jets. Jordan Love has continued the trend, going 2-0 in his first two games against Chicago.
So, exactly when was the last time the Packers lost to the Bears?
Well, think about this. The last time it happened, it had only been two weeks since Mike McCarthy was fired and Rodgers had just two NFL MVP awards in his trophy case. Yeah, it was a while ago.
The Packers haven’t lost to the Bears since December 2018
It’s no secret that the Packers’ 2018 season was an absolute disaster.
After an NFC title game appearance in 2016, the 7-9 record in 2017 made sense, as Rodgers missed nine games after suffering a broken right collarbone.
But even with No. 12 back in the mix, Green Bay went 4-7-1 to open the 2018 campaign, which led to McCarthy being fired following a Week 13 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, at which point offensive coordinator Joe Philbin was named interim head coach.
The Packers responded nicely, getting Philbin his first win with a 34-20 victory over the Atlanta Falcons, which leads us to the last time Green Bay lost to Chicago.
On December 16, 2018, the Packers visited Soldier Field for their second meeting of the season with the Bears. In their first battle of the season in Week 1, Green Bay was down 20-3 through three quarters but mounted a furious fourth-quarter comeback, as Rodgers threw three touchdown passes to help the Packers to a 24-23 victory.
Green Bay fell behind in this second game as well. While the Bears scored a pair of touchdowns in the first half — a 9-yard rushing score from Jordan Howard and a 12-yard TD pass from Mitchell Trubisky to Tarik Cohen — the Packers only put three points on the scoreboard in the first 30 minutes on a 41-yard field goal from Mason Crosby.
Green Bay fought back in the third quarter to tie things up, outscoring Chicago 11-0 on a 43-yard Crosby field goal, a 10-yard TD run from Jamaal Williams, and a two-point conversion from Rodgers to Davante Adams.
But the fourth quarter belonged to the Bears. With just over 10 minutes remaining, Trubisky hit Trey Burton with a 13-yard touchdown pass, and Chicago extended the lead to 10 just three and a half minutes later on a 24-yard field goal from Cody Parkey.
On the ensuing possession, Rodgers led the Packers 66 yards down the field, but on 2nd-and-goal from the Bears’ 9-yard line, he was intercepted by Chicago safety Eddie Jackson, thus ending his NFL-record streak of 402 pass attempts without a pick, a record that remains to this day.
The interception was just Rodgers’ second of the season — he’d end the season with that same number — but this was also the first game of the year in which he failed to throw a touchdown pass.
Green Bay added a third Crosby field goal with 11 seconds remaining to cut the Chicago lead to 24-17 but failed in their onside-kick attempt, thus giving the Bears the victory and their first NFC North title in eight years.
The Packers ultimately finished the 2018 season with a 6-9-1 record and missed the playoffs for the second straight year. Ten days after their loss to the Detroit Lions in the season finale, the Matt LaFleur era began.
