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CHICAGO (0-0) at GREEN BAY (0-0)
Sunday, Sept. 13 - Lambeau Field - 7:20 p.m. CDT
RIVALRY GAME KICKS OFF 2009 IN PRIME TIME
- Green Bay kicks off its 91st season of professional football - its 89th as a National Football League franchise - at Lambeau Field Sunday night against its most storied rival.
- No truer rivalry exists in the NFL, and no two teams have met on the gridiron more than Green Bay and Chicago. Sunday marks the 178th game in the all-time series.
- Names like Halas and Lombardi, Nitschke and Butkus, Starr and Payton only begin to define the history of the series. Currently, the Bears own a 90-80-6 advantage in regular-season play, in addition to the lone playoff win in 1941.
- Green Bay opens the season at home for the fourth consecutive season. The Packers are 49-36-3 (.570) all-time in season openers and 2-1 under Head Coach Mike McCarthy.
- It marks the 21st time the Packers and Bears square off in the NFL season opener. Amazingly, 18 of the previous 20 have occurred in Green Bay, with the lone Windy City openers coming in 1979 and '81. The Bears hold a slight 10-9-1 advantage in openers against the Packers.
- For the second consecutive season, the Packers will open in prime time against a division opponent. Green Bay defeated Minnesota 24-19 on Monday Night Football to open the 2008 season. The Packers are 4-0 all-time in prime-time openers, all of which have come on MNF.
WITH THE CALL
- NBC Sports will broadcast the Sunday Night Football contest to a national audience. Play-by-play man Al Michaels joins color commentator Cris Collinsworth in the broadcast booth with Andrea Kremer serving as the sideline reporter.
- New for the 2009 season, Bob Costas will be on-site for NBC for pregame and halftime segments.
- Fans also can check out the action online, where the broadcast will be streamed on NBCSports.com and NFL.com.
- Milwaukee's WTMJ (620 AM), airing Green Bay games since 1929, heads up the 53-station Packers Radio Network, with Wayne Larrivee (play-by-play) and two-time Packers Pro Bowler Larry McCarren (color) calling the action. The duo enters its 11th season of broadcasts together across the Packers Radio Network, which covers 43 markets in five states.
- Westwood One radio will air the game across the country. Dave Sims (play-by-play) and former Packers WR James Lofton (analyst) will call the action, with Hub Arkush on the sidelines. Scott Graham hosts pregame and halftime shows.
- ESPN International will broadcast the game in three languages to over 180 countries.
- For out-of-town listeners, the broadcast is available to NFL Field Pass subscribers on www.packers.com as well as on Sirius Satellite Radio (channel 127 WTMJ feed) as part of the network's NFL Sunday Drive.
THE DOPE ON THIS WEEK'S OPPONENT:
Green Bay Packers vs. Chicago Bears
All-time regular season: 80-90-6
All-time, postseason: 0-1
All-time, at Lambeau Field: 28-22-0
Streaks: The Bears have won six of the last eight meetings.
Last meeting, regular season: Dec. 22, 2008, at Soldier Field; Bears won, 20-17 OT
Last meeting, Lambeau Field, regular season: Nov. 16, 2008; Packers won, 37-3
COACHES CAPSULES
Mike McCarthy: 28-22-0, .560, (incl. 1-1 postseason); 4th NFL season
Lovie Smith: 47-37-0, .560 (incl. 2-2 postseason); 6th NFL season
Head to Head: Smith 4-2
vs. Opponent: McCarthy 2-4 vs. Bears; Smith 7-3 vs. Packers
MIKE McCARTHY...Is in fourth year as the Packers' 14th head coach.
- Was named Packers head coach on Jan. 12, 2006, his first head coaching job after 13 years as an NFL assistant.
- Honored as the 2007 Motorola NFL Coach of the Year and NFL Alumni Coach of the Year.
- Became the first Packers coach since Vince Lombardi to lead the team to a championship game in his second season.
- One of only three head coaches to lead an offense ranked in the top 10 in the league each of the past three years.
LOVIE SMITH...Is in sixth year as the Bears' 13th head coach.
- With 45 regular-season wins entering 2009, ranks third in franchise history behind Hall of Famers Mike Ditka and George Halas.
- Guided the team to its first Super Bowl appearance in 21 years in 2006.
- Named The Associated Press NFL Coach of the Year in 2005 after he led a worst-to-first revival in the NFC North. The Bears' six-win improvement from the previous season was tied for the biggest in the NFL that year.
- Came to Chicago from St. Louis, where he served as defensive coordinator from 2001-03, helping the Rams return to the Super Bowl in 2001. Prior to that, coached LBs for Tampa Bay from 1996-2000.
THE PACKERS-BEARS SERIES
- The NFL's most prolific rivalry, no two teams have met on the gridiron more than the Packers and Bears. Sunday they face off for the 178th time.
- The Packers' 37-3 win last November marked the largest margin of victory in the series since Green Bay's 40-3 win on Dec. 11, 1994. Chicago's win last December was just the second overtime game in series history and first since Sept. 7, 1980, when Packers K Chester Marcol returned his own blocked field goal for the winning score.
- The Bears have swept the season series twice in the last four years (2005, 2007), their only series sweeps since 1991. The Packers last swept the season series in 2003, concluding a seven-game winning streak and an 18-2 stretch dating back to 1994. On only four occasions in NFL history has a team enjoyed a better 20-game stretch against a single opponent.
- The last time Green Bay led the overall series? On the heels of its three straight NFL championships, 1932, when the Packers led 11-10-5. Two months after Babe Ruth allegedly called his shot at Wrigley Field in the 1932 World Series, the Bears stole from Green Bay a fourth straight title (which at the time was determined by league standings). Chicago barely finished atop the league standings, which unlike today did not count ties. Had the league counted ties in standings, the Packers would have won. The next year, 1933, the NFL began determining its champion with postseason games.
Spread Green Bay -3.5
