Packers QB Jordan Love aims at higher goal than beating the Bears — the playoffs

GREEN BAY, Wis. — The expectations are much higher for Packers quarterbacks than merely beating up the Bears with regularity. As they’ve gone from Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers and now Jordan Love, dominating that rivalry is merely a byproduct of chasing something greater.

Love lit up the Bears in the season opener at Soldier Field, but that looked like a fluke as he quickly tapered off. Things seemed to click for him toward the middle of the season, however, and he has been one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks over the second half.

Now, after winning 5 of 7 games, he just needs a victory over the Bears on Sunday at Lambeau Field — but more so because it would send the Packers to the playoffs, and less because of the rivalry.

“There’s so much tradition here in Green Bay; the main tradition is winning,” Love said Wednesday when asked about continuing his predecessors’ success against the Bears. “What we’re looking forward to more than anything is going out, finishing the season off right and getting a shot at the playoffs.”

Beating the Bears, however, looks more challenging to Love and coach Matt LaFleur than their 38-20 win four months ago would suggest. LaFleur said it was so long ago that “it feels like it was last season,” and their more recent tape is more instructive than rewatching the opener. Love thought the defense he dropped 245 yards, three touchdowns and a 123.2 passer rating on now looks “pretty dangerous” and has “the power to send us home.”

The Bears have since switched from former defensive coordinator Alan Williams calling plays to coach Matt Eberflus doing that, and doing it very well. Game-changing defensive end Montez Sweat hadn’t arrived yet when they met in the opener, either.

Since the Sweat trade, the Bears have allowed the sixth-fewest points per game (20.6), held opponents to the second-lowest passer rating (69.2) and had the second-most takeaways (18).

“They’ve played a lot of ball together and they’ve grown together, and you can see it,” LaFleur said. “They do a great job of getting their hands on a lot of balls, whether it’s punching the ball out, ripping the ball out or creating interceptions… These guys read the QB as good as anybody.”

But Love doesn’t seem as easy to read as he did early in the season.

He was pretty bad after beating the Bears. In his next seven games, five of which the Packers lost, he completed 60.1% of his passes, managed just 210.7 yards per game and had a 77.1 passer rating.

There was a spark of progress from him, though, in the Packers’ Week 10 loss at the Steelers. Love’s numbers were pretty bad that day, but LaFleur saw improved processing and decision making that made him believe big things were coming.

“There was kind of a light bulb that went on for everybody,” he said. “There was a little shift with some of the stuff we were asking our guys to do, and it’s paid off for us.

“We were able to generate some explosive plays within that game, and there were plays that we didn’t make, but I felt confidence moving forward that given those same looks, we’re going to make those plays.”

They have.

Since that Steelers game in mid-November, Love has had a 104.6 passer rating (fourth in the NFL), thrown for 265.4 yards per game (fourth) and connected on 18 touchdown passes (third) while throwing just three interceptions. Last week he shredded the Vikings, against whom the Bears mustered just four field goals in a 12-10 win.

Love’s rise is very promising for the Packers and problematic for the Bears. The NFL is a zero-sum game, and it won’t matter how many prudent choices the Bears make in their rebuild if Love keeps the Packers perpetually one step ahead like Rodgers did.

He stands at 30 touchdown passes this season, nearly double Bears quarterback Justin Fields at 16. Love has a chance at leading the NFL this season if he can overtake the Cowboys’ Dak Prescott (32) and the 49ers’ Brock Purdy (31), and if he gets three against the Bears again, it’ll put his season in the top 10 in Packers history.

That history has been exasperating for the Bears.

The Packers have won four Super Bowls to the Bears’ one. Bart Starr beat the Bears twice in 1966 on his way to winning Super Bowl I and was 16-11 against them over his career. Favre went 22-10 and won a Super Bowl. Rodgers won a Super Bowl the year he beat the Bears in the NFC championship game, and his 25-5 record against them was so demoralizing that when he screamed, “All my [expletive] life, I own you,” to fans at Soldier Field in 2021, the team had no rebuttal.

The Bears could endure all of that if they were contending for and winning championships of their own, but most Januarys they’re merely hate-watching the Packers in the playoffs. That’s where the real pain comes from, and that’s how Love would reach supervillain level like Favre and Rodgers. Because, sure, the Packers care about beating the Bears, but they care a lot more about the postseason.