GREEN BAY – Just over six months ago, the Bears drafted quarterback Caleb Williams with the No. 1 overall pick, and Sunday he gets his first taste of the NFL's oldest rivalry, which Green Bay has dominated of late.
From the Packers' perspective, this will mark the second straight year and fifth time in the last 16 seasons they will face a rookie quarterback who was the top selection in the draft. Curiously, all of the matchups – like Sunday's at Soldier Field – have been on the road, and the last three have been close, high-scoring affairs.
Just last December, Green Bay traveled to face Carolina and QB Bryce Young, who rallied the Panthers from a 14-point deficit in the fourth quarter with two TD passes to D.J. Chark to tie the game. The Packers responded with a go-ahead field goal with just 19 seconds left, and then hung on for a 33-30 victory when Young ran out of time as he spiked the ball in Green Bay territory to end the game.
Back in 2012, the Packers lost a similar shootout in Indianapolis against QB Andrew Luck, who dug the Colts out of a 21-3 halftime hole with the help of receiver Reggie Wayne's monster game. Wayne capped a 13-catch, 212-yard day with a go-ahead TD with 35 seconds left, and the Packers missed a long field goal moments later in a 30-27 decision.
The year before that, it was Carolina again and QB Cam Newton, who passed for 432 yards but also threw three interceptions in a 30-23 Green Bay win. With the Packers up by seven points and looking to kill the last three minutes on the clock, Jordy Nelson hauled in an 84-yard TD pass. Newton responded with a late score, but the Packers recovered the onside kick.
The only one of these relatively recent matchups against rookie QBs who were No. 1 overall picks that wasn't particularly close came on Thanksgiving in 2009 at Detroit. Matthew Stafford hadn't played in the first meeting with Green Bay that year, and then the Packers picked him off four times on the holiday, with Charles Woodson returning one for a TD in a 34-12 triumph.
Strangely, prior to 2009, it had been 20 years since the Packers had faced a rookie QB who was the top overall draft pick – Dallas' Troy Aikman back in 1989. In between, the Packers played JaMarcus Russell's Raiders in 2007, Eli Manning's Giants in '04, and Michael Vick's Falcons in '01, but those rookie QBs didn't play against Green Bay in those games.
Back to the here and now. The Bears' current offensive struggles don't lend themselves to predictions of a high-scoring affair like those previous ones described, but you never know.
The Bears have scored a total of just 12 points, with no touchdowns, over their last two games, and Williams was sacked nine times last week to push his league-leading total to 38. The sharp downturn in production, after the Bears had scored 95 points during an earlier three-game winning streak, led to the firing of offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, who's been replaced by Thomas Brown.
Last year heading into Green Bay's matchup against Young in Carolina, the Panthers had been held to 18 points or fewer over eight straight games until putting up 30 on the Packers. Carolina's offensive coordinator then? Brown.
The Packers are preparing for the Bears to show some different looks and switch up some tendencies, but defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley stressed his staff hasn't spent the week trying to guess what Brown might change with the offense and Williams. That can be a fool's errand.
"At the end of the day, we're going to play our defense," Hafley said. "We'll go play our game."
For all the scrutiny and criticism Williams has faced, the Packers are bringing a healthy respect for him into this contest. They've spent more time studying that three-game winning streak when he was lighting up the scoreboard than his more recent results.
"Definitely a guy who's going to create on his own, get out of the pocket – just a really good improviser," said rookie safety Evan Williams, who played against Caleb Williams last year when Oregon and USC squared off.
Added fellow safety Xavier McKinney, who believes Williams has a bright future: "He's actually pretty strong in the pocket. He has a good feel and awareness of when he's getting pressured, and he's able to get out and extend plays down the field."
Williams has a bevy of weapons in veteran receivers DJ Moore and Keenan Allen, plus tight end Cole Kmet and rookie first-round receiver Rome Odunze. That's the type of playmaking collection the Bears were missing with their previous first-round investments in quarterbacks Mitch Trubisky and Justin Fields.
On top of that, the Bears are expected to get their starting offensive tackles back from injury after they missed last week's game, when the Patriots ran roughshod over Chicago's backups in posting those nine sacks.
Better protection plus a new coordinator and play-caller could give Williams a new lease on life as a rookie, and the Packers are expecting the top draft pick's best shot.
"He's tough, he's taking shots, he's elusive, he can throw the ball down the field," Hafley said. "I've seen times when he's come across the board and hit the backside read …
"And they're 4-1 at home. This is a team a couple of weeks ago everybody was talking about winning the division or being right in the thick of things in the division, so this isn't one anybody's going to take lightly at all."
