Bears

No date on the calendar carries more weight in Chicago than the day the Bears meet the Green Bay Packers. The rivalry runs back to 1921, the oldest in the league, and it has never needed a trophy to justify itself — just two towns three hours apart and a grudge that outlives every roster.

The franchise traces to George Halas, who built it from a company team in Decatur before moving it north and settling on the name Bears once it landed in Chicago. Nine championships followed across the decades, eight of them from the years before the Super Bowl existed, won under names like Bronko Nagurski, Sid Luckman and George McCaskey's own family, which still owns the club today.

Only one of those titles came in the Super Bowl era, and it says everything about how the Bears see themselves. The 1985 team went 15–1, and went out and won it anyway under Mike Ditka. Walter Payton carried that era on his back.

No franchise has sent more names to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, 32 in all, which is its own kind of argument for what the club has meant to the sport even in the lean years. And there have been lean years: between 2011 and 2026 the Bears ran through 23 different starting quarterbacks before finally settling on Caleb Williams, the first overall pick in 2024.

None of it changes what circles on the schedule first. Whatever else a season holds, it is measured against Green Bay.