It didn’t take Ben Johnson long to fully embrace the Bears-Packers rivalry.
Chicago’s first-year head coach, already not a fan of Green Bay from his six seasons with the Lions, didn’t mince words during his postgame locker room speech after the second-seeded Bears’ frenetic comeback win over the seventh-seeded Packers Saturday night in the wild-card round.
“F–k the Packers, man! F–k them. F–king hate those guys,” Johnson told his team, as shown in video posted on the team’s official social media accounts.
Johnson, 39, dove right into the rivalry last year upon being hired by the Bears after being the Lions’ offensive coordinator.
“I’m gonna be quite frank with you. I kind of enjoyed beating Matt LaFleur twice a year,” he said during his introductory press conference.
Sunday, in the teams’ third matchup of the season, Johnson and the Bears got their second win over LaFleur and the Pack after splitting their regular-season meetings.
And it ended with another icy handshake between the two head coaches.
The win was emblematic of the Bears’ season, constantly fighting uphill battles while somehow finding ways to come out victorious.
Chicago trailed 21-3 at halftime, but two field goals and a touchdown brought them to within five points with just over 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter.
A Jordan Love touchdown pass to Matthew Golden put the Packers up 27-16 with 6:36 left, though Brandon McManus missed his extra-point attempt.
Caleb Williams connected with Olamide Zaccheaus on an 8-yard touchdown, and a two-point conversion made it 27-24.
Williams then hit DJ Moore for a 25-yard touchdown with 1:43 left to give the Bears a 31-27 lead that they held onto for their first playoff win in 15 years.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
