They may have expected it but this is not what the Bears needed to hear.
Were going to play this thing to win, linebacker Clay Matthews said Wednesday. His Green Bay Packers dont really need the win for more than homefield advantage. But they remember that the Bears, despite having homefield clinched throughout the playoffs, did not let up even a little in game 16 last season.
The Packers won 10-3, got into the playoffs despite the Bears best (more or less) efforts, and repaid in kind by dumping the Bears in the NFC Championship game.
The Bears admit to needing obvious help in making the playoffs, by way of Green Bay and Minnesota losses (to them) and defeats elsewhere of Atlanta, Detroit, anyone with a mathematical chance of squeezing into a wild-card spot ahead of them.
They wont get any this weekend, at least not from the Green Bay Packers. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers already is on record declaring it would be nice to put Chicago and Detroit out of the playoffs.
Matthews agrees, citing the 2010 finish where the Packers beat the Bears in two of the last three games the Bears played.
You throw in the rivalry and bad blood between the two teams, and why would they want to see us in the playoffs? Matthews said. At the same time, I dont think there was another team with as much momentum as we had going into that last few weeks.
NFL
It was going to be tough for them to see us again and maybe that played a part.