How Ben Johnson Just Gleefully Made The Bears-Packers Hostility Even Worse
Lovie Smith said his first goal upon taking over as the Chicago Bears‘ head coach was to beat Green Bay. It was an acknowledgement that the rivalry meant a lot, not just to the fans but also to his team’s actual fate. The Packers had owned the rivalry for a decade at that point. He needed to turn things around if the Bears wanted to reach the mountaintop. It seems Ben Johnson saw that playbook when he arrived last January and decided to crank everything in it up to 11.
He made his disdain for the Packers and their head coach, Matt LaFleur, plain as day from the opening press conference. In the following months, nothing changed. His handshakes after games against them were brief and icy. The pressers leading up to them were in no way meant to be classy or respectful. Then, to culminate everything, he screamed, “F**k the Packers!” in the post-game locker room after beating them in the wild card round.
Johnson doesn’t like them. In fact, his first words when asked about the rivalry by Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk during an interview on Tuesday said it all.
“Who likes the Packers?”
Ben Johnson isn’t in this business to make friends.
He wants to win. It’s a competition and the object of it is to be the best. From his perspective, the Packers have been the biggest obstacle to achieving that goal since he joined the NFC North in 2019. They dominated the rivalry with the Detroit Lions during those first few years, looking to rub it in at every opportunity. One can understand why Johnson developed a deep-rooted hatred for them. Taking over the helm of their greatest rival felt like the perfect opportunity to twist the knife in the most agonizing ways.
Now here he is, 2-1 against them and claiming a playoff victory that featured one of the greatest comebacks in modern NFL history. Ben Johnson does not care if Packer fans hate him. That would have been the case whether he was calm and composed in his comments or not. Better to lean into the rivalry and make his actual feelings clear. By making himself such an obvious lightning rod, he takes the focus off his team, who are free to put all their effort into doing what he actually wants: winning.
| Head Coach | Record vs. Packers (W-L-T) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| George Halas | 43–30–4 | The winningest coach in the rivalry’s history. |
| Mike Ditka | 15–5 | Dominated the 1980s era of the rivalry. |
| Lovie Smith | 8–11 | Most wins of any modern-era Bears coach vs. Green Bay. |
| Jack Pardee | 5–1 | Highest winning percentage (.833) for a multi-year Bears coach. |
| Hunk Anderson / Luke Johnsos | 4–2–1 | Co-coaches during WWII while Halas served in the Navy. |
| Neill Armstrong | 4–4 | Finished exactly at .500 against Green Bay. |
| Paddy Driscoll | 3–1 | Succeeded Halas for his middle retirement stint. |
| Ben Johnson | 2–1 | Hired in 2025; led the Bears to a 2025-26 NFC Wild Card win over Green Bay. |
| Ralph Jones | 3–5–1 | Coached during the early 1930s. |
| Abe Gibron | 2–4 | Head coach during the early 1970s. |
| Jim Dooley | 2–6 | Immediate successor to George Halas in 1968. |
| Dick Jauron | 2–8 | Coached during the peak of the Brett Favre era. |
| Marc Trestman | 1–3 | Only win came in the 2013 regular season. |
| John Fox | 1–5 | Only win was on Thanksgiving 2015. |
| Matt Nagy | 1–7 | Only win occurred during his rookie season in 2018. |
| Dave Wannstedt | 1–11 | Holds the lowest winning percentage for a multi-year coach. |
| Thomas Brown | 1–0 | Interim coach who won his lone meeting against Green Bay in 2024. |
| Matt Eberflus | 0–5 | Only multi-year head coach to never beat the Packers. |
Johnson doesn’t see them as the big, bad troll under the bridge.
He sees them as an obstacle to bigger goals. When Rex Ryan arrived in New York in 2009, he said he wasn’t there to kiss Bill Belichick’s rings. Ben Johnson is much the same way. His job isn’t to be friendly with Lafleur like Matt Eberflus was. It is to kick the living hell out of him. He didn’t enter this business to make friends. He wants to compete and win football games. No team has done more to harm the Bears’ opportunities for that in the past three decades than the Packers.
It only makes sense that Johnson would see them as the first problem to fix. A great way to unsettle a king is by forcing him to make decisions based on emotion. By getting under the skin of the Packers, he got them to focus more on beating up the Bears than winning games. It is a strategy that has worked wonders in the past. So it was no surprise he kept needling them in that interview. The more riled up he can make Green Bay, the better it is for the Bears.