Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson is making it very clear that he takes the team’s rivalry with the Green Bay Packers as seriously as any fan.
Johnson, whose Bears have now beaten the Packers twice in less than a month after Saturday’s 31-27 win, didn’t mince words in his postgame speech to the team following that playoff victory.
“F*** the Packers! F*** them! I hate those guys!,” he said.
Johnson was asked about the comments during his Monday press conference, and he didn’t back off of the comments at all.
“There’s a rivalry that exists between these two teams, something that I fully recognize and I’m a part of,” he said. “I just don’t like that team.”
Johnson’s players have also bought into the rivalry with the Packers, wearing cheese-grater hats amid the delirious celebrations following their win over Green Bay on Saturday. Quarterback Caleb Williams even grated cheese at the Prime Video desk during the postgame show, and has worn his cheese-grater hat while doing charity work in the city following the December win.
The Bears’ coach said that there’s a little bit of extra juice that goes into playing the Packers, and that it helped to fuel the team prior to the game.
“That’s something we certainly play into a little bit, as in coaches and players, is that we know how big it is when Chicago plays Green Bay,” he said.
He also said that he has a very important backer in trying to amp up the rivalry between the two teams: Bears Chairman George McCaskey.
“George and I have talked, and we’re on the same page,” he said.
The Bears have now won three of their last four games against the Packers, and their playoff win over Green Bay was their first over their hated rival since all the way back in 1941.
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