Much has changed since the beginning of the 2010 NFL season. The Minnesota Vikings were the defending division champs, the Green Bay Packers were predicted to go to the Super Bowl by many, and the Chicago Bears would be lucky to have finished third in their own division.
Now with the NFC Championship game a couple days away the division winning Chicago Bears will be hosting a Green Bay Packers team that barely squeezed into the playoffs and fought hard to put themselves in a position to get to the Super Bowl against their division rival the Chicago Bears.
A story line of this magnitude could not be scripted any better, with both teams splitting the first two meetings and now playing for the Halas trophy we wondered how Head Coach Lovie Smith looked at the matchup, “Well it’s only fitting that it would come down to that. As I said earlier, they’ve had a great year, we know each other well. Game planning this week, again, we know what they’re going to do. They know what we’re going to do. But no matter where you are there’s always a team that you have to beat. There’s a rival that everyone has, of course being a Chicago Bear fan, you know that it’s Green Bay for us, so to have to beat the Packers to get to the Super Bowl, our ultimate goal, is the only way it should be and we embrace that.”
With so much on the line and hype surrounding both cities how would any person be able to decide to the fate of such a contest. The importance of getting off to a good start and setting the tone must be a key for both teams stepping out on to the field. The question becomes how to get that early advantage. Does something as important as a coin toss play into the hands of one team or the other?
“Defense, we always want to be on the field first. Our offense wants to be on the field. It should be that way throughout the league. You always want to get out, get a quick stop, and get the offense on the field and score. At least that’s the defensive side,” said Bears linebacker Lance Briggs.
With the defense wanting to take on the Packers offense first and set the tone for the rest of the team, they will have to be ready to stop the high powered offense of Aaron Rodgers and company. Arguably the best receiving core in the NFL with Donald Driver, Greg Jennings, and Jordy Nelson, the Bears must do everything they can to get to Rodgers before those receivers will be able to do damage to the rest of the Bears secondary. Containing Rodgers will be no easy task, but a task none the less.
Briggs agrees, “I think one the keys to containing Aaron Rodgers, is to do similar stuff that we did last time we played him. Defensively, we did a lot of good things. We got off the field a lot on third down, we got a lot of pressure, made him move his feet, throw the ball quick and we got around tacklers. One thing we’ve done well all year, we’ve been great tacklers. Guys don’t get a whole lot of yards after first contact and guys that do tend to get punished by the other 10 guys running to the ball. So, those are things that we need to do.”
The defense will be the key for the Chicago Bears as it has been all season. The Bears have been one of the top defenses all year, and if they continue to do just that on their home field, it will give them a shot at returning to the Super Bowl for the second time under Lovie Smith. Under no circumstances will this be an easy victory for a team who is expected to lose Sunday, to their hated rival on their home field, but with the Bears embracing the underdog role it will only be fitting from them to return to Dallas for the second time this season.
