NFL Sets Date, Time for Packers-Bears in Week 18

The Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears will close the 2023 regular season next weekend at Lambeau Field. Here are the details.

MINNEAPOLIS – The Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears will wrap up the NFL regular season at Lambeau Field at 3:25 p.m. Sunday, the NFL announced on Sunday night.

The game will be televised by CBS.

The Packers, who destroyed the Minnesota Vikings to keep their playoff hopes alive on Sunday night, are early 1.5-point favorites in a matchup that will be a tale of two streaks.

The Packers have won seven in a row over the Bears at Lambeau Field, with the last three coming by 15, 16 and 17 points.

However, the Bears have belatedly found their groove. They were routed 38-20 by Green Bay in Week 1, part of Chicago’s 0-4 start to the season. Three consecutive road losses sunk its record to 3-8. However, the Bears have won four of their last five games – including by 15 against Detroit, 11 against Arizona and 20 on Sunday against Atlanta to improve their record to 6-9.

In routing the Falcons, quarterback Justin Fields is coming off one of his best games with 268 passing yards and one touchdown and 45 rushing yards and another touchdown.

“He’s special. I shake my head on the sideline watching because I don’t know how he does it,” running back Khalil Herbert said.

The 2022 and 2023 seasons had some parallels for the Packers. In 2022, Green Bay was 4-8 but won four in a row to move to the precipice of an unlikely playoff berth. With the Packers on the verge of clinching in a win-and-in divisional showdown, the league moved their Week 18 game against the up-and-coming Lions into the marquee Sunday night spot, only for the Packers to lay an egg in Aaron Rodgers’ finale.

In 2023, the Packers dropped four in a row to plunge to 2-5. A three-game winning streak against the Chargers, Lions and Chiefs moved the Packers to 6-6. Back-to-back losses to the Giants and Buccaneers and a hold-on-for-dear-life victory over the Panthers had Green Bay at 7-8 entering Sunday night’s game at the Vikings.

Now, they are 8-8 with a chance to clinch a playoff berth.

The finale will be against the up-and-coming Bears, who own the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.

Packers-Vikings was a high-stakes game for both teams, especially after Seattle lost to Pittsburgh.

“It’d be big because this is pretty much a playoff game,” linebacker Quay Walker said of closing the calendar year with a win. “Not only that, this is a rival and both teams are trying to get in a position where we want to be at the end of the year. It’d be a big win. A big win. Big-time win.”

The Packers lost 24-10 at home to Minnesota on Oct. 29. The offense played much better during the second half of the season, which allowed the team to rally into playoff contention. That’s been spearheaded by quarterback Jordan Love, who entered Sunday night with the third-best passer rating in the league over the last seven weeks.

“I think we’ve grown a lot,” Love said. “Just watching our first game that we played the Vikings and just seeing plays that are being made, some of the missed opps we had, I think we’re definitely a different team and a different offense. Some of those plays we missed on, we’ve grown into understanding what we need to do and ways to fix that going forward. So, I definitely think we’re a better offense than we were the first time we played.”

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