Perhaps it could be within the Green Bay Packers’ greatest curiosity to place their four-time MVP quarterback on the shelf for the remainder of 2022, to let Aaron Rodgers relaxation his battered ribs and handle his damaged proper thumb. The Packers then might take an extended have a look at younger Jordan Love and start to make a extra knowledgeable analysis of their attainable quarterback succession plan. Always good to keep watch over the longer term, proper?
But nope. Forget that.
This is Bears-Packers, man. Meeting No. 206 in skilled soccer’s longest-running rivalry. It’s a little bit of a tiebreaker, too, with each groups proudly owning 786 regular-season victories over the past 103 seasons.
Rodgers ain’t lacking this.
“One of my favorite places to play,” he mentioned this week.
Forget that ayahuasca tea. Visiting Soldier Field has lengthy been one in all Rodgers’ most dependable highs, an annual journey that normally ends in a state of satisfaction. Fifteen stops in Chicago because the Packers beginning quarterback, 12 victories.
That’s why when the NFL schedule is launched every spring, Rodgers admits he appears shortly for 2 issues. First, when will the Packers have their bye week? Second, when will they go to Soldier Field?
Politely, he says it’s as a result of he loves Chicago as a tradition-rich and passionate sports activities city. And he sincerely implies that. But deep down, it’s straightforward to grasp how a lot he relishes his position as tormentor too.
Thus Rodgers will begin Sunday, even along with his 4-8 workforce and his strange receiving corps and his dwindling persistence for the way the season has unraveled.
Pardon the pun. But Love can wait. Rodgers has an itch to scratch and a sense of duty.
“Listen, if we were 8-4, 4-8, 12-0, 0-12, I’d be wanting to suit up this week,” he mentioned Tuesday on “The Pat McAfee Show.” “And not just because it’s Chicago. It’s because that’s what you do. When you’re a player, you go out there and if you can play, you play. You don’t need some doctor to give you an excuse. ‘Oh, man, I don’t know. Maybe one more week. Not quite 100%.’ No. If you can go out there and compete and you have competitive greatness in your body, in your heart, in your mind, you go out and play.”
OK. That leads, naturally, to how the Bears’ up-in-the-air quarterback scenario has developed this week. On Thursday, Justin Fields was cleared for full apply participation for the primary time since Week 12, clearing a hurdle that positions him to start out this week. Against the Packers. Against Rodgers.
Heck, yeah.
Practically talking, it may be within the franchise’s greatest curiosity to maintain Fields out one other recreation, to provide him further time to regain energy in his separated left shoulder and have his ache and discomfort diminish to the place he can once more be taking part in quick and worry-free.
After all, Fields’ November fireworks present teased an extended and promising way forward for high-scoring, entertaining offense in Chicago. So why threat something except completely vital, particularly after high receiver Darnell Mooney was misplaced for the season final week with a left ankle harm that can require surgical procedure?
Still, although …
This is freaking Bears-Packers, the rivalry that for many years favored Chicago till Rodgers and Brett Favre mixed to win 46 of their 61 begins within the collection, a working tab that would tick upward once more this weekend.
Isn’t it a part of Fields’ duty to assist the Bears seize management again, to speed up their pursuit of NFC North dominance by downing the workforce that has worn this division’s crown probably the most?
And wouldn’t there be one thing additional candy — and completely intriguing, frankly — in regards to the rising younger Bears quarterback slaying the Packers legend in a see-your-breath December shootout by Lake Michigan?
“If I feel like I can help my team win and help my team score points, then I’m going to go out there and play,” Fields mentioned Wednesday.
Memory recreation
When Packers receiver Allen Lazard was requested Wednesday about Rodgers’ dedication to play in opposition to the Bears, he smiled.
“I think he’s got to renew his ownership,” Lazard mentioned. “You’ve got to do that twice a year.”
Oh, yeah. That. The complete “All my (bleeping) life! I own you!” grenade launched by Rodgers throughout his final go to to Soldier Field, a 24-14 Packers victory on Oct. 17, 2021, punctuated by the quarterback’s 6-yard TD scramble and celebratory invective behind the south finish zone.
“He’s a (bleep)-talker,” Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson mentioned.
That episode final season was painful for the Bears and their followers however nonetheless a second Rodgers casually downplays as not even amongst his high 5 moments of torturing Chicago with a villainous smile throughout his mug.
To that finish, Rodgers retains vivid recall of so many triumphs in Chicago.
He did, in any case, win the George Halas Trophy at Soldier Field in January 2011, beating the Bears 21-14 within the NFC championship recreation and happening to win his one and solely Super Bowl two weeks later. That journey was fairly darn rewarding.
Rodgers additionally stays significantly keen on his 2016 win at Soldier Field, the one wherein the Bears rallied from 17 factors down within the fourth quarter to tie the sport with 1:19 left — solely to have their archrival rip their hearts out with a 60-yard completion to Jordy Nelson with 31 seconds remaining. That Rodgers move arrange a walk-off 32-yard area aim as time expired.
Plus, there’ll all the time be that last-minute, fourth-down, division-winning landing move to Randall Cobb within the 2013 season finale, the exclamation level on a 15-play, 87-yard drive that gave the Packers a 33-28 victory and a spot within the playoffs — in Rodgers’ first begin again after an eight-week absence due to a damaged collarbone he suffered in a Lambeau Field loss to the Bears.
Rodgers nonetheless can recount that recreation and that sequence in exceptional element, remembering the interceptions he threw to Chris Conte and Tim Jennings; the weird fumble-recovery landing receiver Jarrett Boykin scored on; and the one-point deficit the Packers confronted once they received the ball for the ultimate time, at their 13 yard line with 6:24 remaining.
Rodgers transformed three fourth downs on that remaining drive, the final in opposition to an all-out blitz. He’ll level out that the Bears despatched seven rushers in opposition to a six-man safety on fourth-and-8 and, with a greater rush sample, ought to have had the strain to explode the play, win the sport and clinch the division.
Rodgers has famous for years how his preliminary aim was to hit Nelson as his scorching learn on a cease route alongside the left hashmarks. But then he noticed security Major Wright blow Nelson up and caught a glimpse of fullback John Kuhn managing to chop block Julius Peppers simply because the Bears move rusher was about to engulf him. That’s when Rodgers seen Cobb working broad open behind Conte.
And effectively, that 48-yard landing move supplied one of many best emotions of Rodgers’ profession, a season-salvaging, playoff-berth clinching triumph. All on the expense of the Bears.
That proper there may be the stuff, the aggressive exhilaration that may’t be matched. Those are the moments that convey Rodgers again, even within the late phases of a wayward season akin to this.
‘He’s a soldier’
Those are the sorts of conquests Fields ought to proceed to thirst for as he continues his profession climb. At this level, his library within the Bears-Packers rivalry stays small. He has began 3 times and misplaced all three — by a median of 14 factors.
By league requirements, Sunday’s matchup received’t qualify as a high-stakes, big-stage recreation, not with the Packers means down the checklist on the NFC “In the hunt” graphics and the Bears nowhere to be discovered.
Still, there may be loads of potential juice. That a lot was evident as early as Monday at Halas Hall when Bears tight finish Cole Kmet, who grew up a loyal Bears fan in Arlington Heights, was requested if he really wished to see Rodgers within the Packers’ huddle this week.
“Yeah,” Kmet mentioned with out hesitation. “Bring it on, you know? I mean, why wouldn’t you (want that)? He’s the staple of their franchise. And to get an opportunity to go beat him, it would always be a good feeling. So yeah, I would like to see Aaron out there for sure.”
Kmet can have that want granted. Now, it seems, the Bears additionally might have Fields prepared for the conflict.
It’s no surprise, then, that Fields’ “full” standing at apply Thursday created an power surge within the locker room.
Said Johnson: “For me, it’s no surprise. He’s a soldier. He’s going to be out there whenever he can. I feel like he feels good enough to be out there. He looks good in practice, being back to himself. So I’m looking forward to him and 12 going at it.”
Johnson is way from alone with that eagerness.
“It’s great having him back,” working again David Montgomery mentioned. “QB1, being able to have that guy back there and able to make some plays and be who he is is good.”
Fields’ toughness, need and aggressive tenacity has been evident. Now he will get the stage once more and a chance so as to add to his resume.
“At the end of the day, he leads by example,” Johnson mentioned. “He can’t ask us to come out there and be a tough team, be a tough unit and he’s out and not displaying toughness in whatever way that is. Mentally, physically, I feel like there are a lot of ways quarterbacks and players in this league display toughness. But he does it in all areas.”
‘Competitive greatness’
Rodgers was talking usually on “The Pat McAfee Show” this week, explaining the mindset he has used by the grind of 15 seasons as a high-level NFL quarterback. But these looking for innuendo might need heard a splash of kerosene on the flames of the Bears-Packers rivalry.
“Understandably, I guess, there’s fear around, ‘What does it mean if I’m not 100% and I don’t play my absolute best?’ ” Rodgers mentioned. “Can I dwell with that actuality? And I feel many individuals can’t. For me, I can as a result of I do know what aggressive greatness is. Going on the market and attempting to do your greatest on a regular basis and placing your physique on the road on your teammates and figuring out that in case you’re 90%, 80%, 70%, and it offers your workforce the very best probability to win, you then’re on the market and also you’re taking part in.
Perhaps that was a refined problem to Fields. Most seemingly, it was nothing of the kind.
Still, in a rivalry that all the time has supplied elevated theater, it felt like a Shakespearean soliloquy, as well timed because it was gripping.
Rodgers talked brazenly about his must fulfill the person within the mirror.
“That’s honestly the only person you really have to appease and whose opinion you have to live up to,” he mentioned. “It’s that person staring right back at you. That’s why I’ve always wanted to play. And that’s why I’ve never wanted to come out of games. Because I want to look in the mirror and know I did everything I could to be out there with my guys. I put my body on the line willingly. That’s the nature of being a fierce competitor and striving for competitive greatness — that it’s not really a question.”
Inside each locker rooms, neither Packers nor Bears gamers have been shocked at how this week has unfolded.
If every part breaks because it ought to, a doubtlessly charming quarterback duel — Rodgers vs. Fields — ought to start at excessive midday Sunday.
Now we’re speaking.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com