Bear Digest

Bears Have Already Dodged Biggest Season-Opening Headache

The Bears will not face the Green Bay Packers in the season opener, a real problem game for them regardless of when it occurs but particularly in openers.

Gene Chamberlain

Jayden Reed gets loose on a long punt return against the Bears at Soldier Field.
Jayden Reed gets loose on a long punt return against the Bears at Soldier Field. / Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal
In this story:

The Bears will avoid facing their biggest rival in the first week of the season.

Based on the past, it's easy to say they're ahead of the game already.

When they start the season, presumably with Caleb Williams at quarterback, it won't be against the Green Bay Packers, according to a report by Adam Schefter of ESPN.

The Packers have to open the season in another country. They play the Philadelphia Eagles Sept. 6 in  São Paolo, Brazil on the Friday after the league's Thursday night season opener, Schefter reported.

The Bears have had to open their seaso n against Green Bay in three of their past six seasons and lost all three of those.

They have lost a series record 10 straight to the Packers and the last five times they faced the Packers in an opener they lost. The last win in an opener over Green Bay came in 2006, when the Bears went to the Super Bowl and lost to the Indianapolis Colts.

DOES BEARS RUNNING GAME FADE AWAY WITH CALEB WILLIAMS AT QB?

The Bears schedule will likely be released in May, after the draft, based on past release dates.

The only leak so far on their regular-season schedule is a game to be played in London at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium against an unnamed opponent.

The Bears open preseason in the Hall of Fame Game at Canton, against the Baltimore Ravens on Aug. 1. The rest of the preseason opponents and weekends of games normally comes out at the time the regular-season schedule, although the exact dates and times of those games normally are announced later.

CALEB WILLIAMS RESPONDS TO ANOTHER CONTRIVED CRITICISM

THIS BEARS TOP 30 VISIT IS MATTER OF LOOKING AT ALL ROUND 1 POSSIBILITIES

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.

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