The Bears-Packers rivalry is getting a new slot on the calendar in Week 5, and it won’t be sitting in the late afternoon window anymore. Green Bay’s matchup with Chicago has been moved up to Noon CT.
That shift comes with the kind of backdrop that has reshaped the game’s billing. Under normal circumstances, this would have had a strong case for FOX’s Game of the Week, but injuries and other circumstances have knocked it down a rung. Chicago is still expected to be without Caleb Williams, and while Micah Parsons remains on the PUP list through Week 4, the odds of him being back for Sunday, Oct. 11, are described as slim.
Even with the adjusted kickoff time, the game still carries the weight that always follows Bears vs. Packers. The rivalry hasn’t lost any edge, and the Ben Johnson era in Chicago has only poured more fuel on it.
For Green Bay, though, the timing is a little different than what fans might have expected from a team in this spot. The Packers are 1-2, and the season has already been rough enough that it took what was described as a relative miracle for them to beat the New York Jets. After getting blown out on Thursday Night Football by the Atlanta Falcons, a first-game-of-the-day kickoff is hardly the spotlight they probably had in mind.
The league may have had Week 5 circled as a possible return for Parsons, but that plan got complicated quickly when Williams went down early in the season. There’s also a chance Jordan Love could miss the game if Green Bay’s offensive line doesn’t clean things up in Week 4 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
That possibility would make the opening month even stranger for the Packers. Green Bay has already learned it won’t have to deal with Baker Mayfield on Sunday, Oct. 4, because of a thumb injury that will keep him out for close to a month. That means there’s a real chance the Packers face backup quarterbacks in consecutive weeks.
If they can’t take advantage of those chances, the questions around what this team can actually win this season will only grow louder. Beating Chicago in Week 5 would give Green Bay an early jolt. It would also come with the usual noise from Bears fans, who are not likely to see Williams suit up for the Oct. 11 meeting.
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Krafts clarification matters because the Packers are already under scrutiny for the product they put on the field, and the last thing the team needed was added noise around a defensive comment directed at its own crowd. He pointed to Christian Watsons response as a better example of how to handle the situation, a small but telling sign that Green Bays players know the line between venting frustration and turning it inward. [Read more 🡒]
Jordan Love Now Has To Answer For A Packers Offensive Mess
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Brent Sobleskis Week 3 grade of a D for Love against Atlanta only adds to the pressure on a unit that has looked out of sync at times. For the Packers, the bigger question now is not just whether Love can keep stacking up touchdowns, but whether he can keep answering for an offense that has too often made his job harder than it should be. [Read more 🡒]