Bears-Packers NFL 2023 Kickoff: What Fans Need To Know

CHICAGO — By Chicago standards, second-year Bears coach Matt Eberflus is still relatively new to the city’s biggest football rivalry.

Yet, as the one who is charged with reversing his team’s fortunes coming off a three-win season, Eberflus realizes that the measuring stick of success here begins and ends with one team. So, heading into Sunday’s NFL season-opener against the rival Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field, the way in which Eberflus approaches not only the year ahead but the Bears’ Week 1 challenge could signal what he foresees over the next 17 weeks.

Coming off a 3-14 finish in 2022 in which they played their way into earning the top pick in the 2023 NFL Draft (which they ultimately traded), the Bears start afresh Sunday. For the first time in recent memory, the Packers won’t be led by quarterback Aaron Rodgers, whose dominance over the Bears was so pronounced that he once famously mouthed the words, “I own you” to Bears fans after scoring a touchdown.

Rodgers may be gone after being sent to the New York Jets in the off-season, but his absence doesn’t change the temperature of a game that Eberflus, even in just his second year in Chicago, understands fully.

“You have to state what it is — it’s a heck of a rivalry,” Eberflus told reporters on Wednesday at Halas Hall. “It’s the best tradition, the best rivalry in football. You’ve got to state that That’s a fact. But this is one game and it’s the only thing we can control.”

The Bears are hoping to see another step in the development of quarterback Justin Fields, who struggled at times during his second NFL season last year. The Bears made an effort to improve the protection in front of Fields as well as using the allure of the overall No. 1 draft pick to add D.J Moore to Fields’ receiving corps.

Yet, whether the Bears did enough in both the offensive line and along its defensive front to provide enough of a significant upgrade that translates to more victories in an ever-improving NFC North Division remains the question. Most NFL experts predict the Bears will finish last in the division behind the resurging Detroit Lions, the Jordan Love-led Packers, and the Minnesota Vikings.

“That’s the number one goal – to win the division and then win the conference and go to the Super Bowl and have a chance to win that,” Eberflus told reporters this week. “We talk about that early on in the spring, but we know that division games are more important — they have a little more weight to them, and we’re excited about this one.”

Heading into Sunday’s season-opener here’s what fans need to know:

• Kickoff: 3:25 p.m.
• Soldier Field (Sold Out)
• Weather: Mostly sunny, High of 75 degrees
• TV: Fox
• The Line: Bears -1
• The Streak: The Packers have won eight straight games against the Bears, who last beat Green Bay in 2018 in a 24-17 victory. The Bears are 2-13 against Green Bay in the last 15 meetings between the two rivals.
• Money Line: Packers (-105), Bears (-115)
• The Bears are 2-10 against the spread in NFC North games in the past two seasons and Fields is 8-16-1 against the spread, which represents the second worst among NFL quarterbacks with at least 25 starts in the Super Bowl era.