Analyzing the Bears with the help of 22 names, starting with …
Malik Muhammad (1), who turned around at his locker, reached into his backpack and pulled out a black Moleskine notebook, the kind with a ribbon for a bookmark, on Wednesday.
The Bears cornerback, a fourth-round rookie, flipped through his notes and found the list he drafted at the start of the season.
At the top, in cursive: “Teams that passed on me — that rent is DUE!”
Below it is a list of teams that took cornerbacks ahead of the former Texas star, sorted by which week they play the Bears this season.
“I’m just checking them off the list,” he told me Wednesday.
The Jets, who drafted cornerback D’Angelo Ponds (2) in Round 2, were first. He put a check mark next to them after the Bears beat them Sunday.
Next? The Packers, who took Brandon Cisse (3) in the second round. Only Muhammad didn’t call them that on the list.
“Cheeseball Packs Boooooo,” he wrote.
With six o’s.
“Oh my God, wait ‘til we beat them,” he said.
The rivalry runs deep, even for the newest Bears. For others, it’s become part of their lives. Chairman George McCaskey (4) carries business cards that he hands out to Packers fans that says “it’s not too late to become a Bears fan.” Tight end Cole Kmet (5), whose sister dates Packers defensive end Lukas Van Ness (6), joked before the playoffs in January that he doesn’t speak to her during rivalry week.
Receivers coach Antwaan Randle El (7), who went to Thornton Township High School, can’t walk into Lambeau Field without thinking of the rivalry games he grew up watching on TV. Al Harris (8), the Bears’ defensive backs coach, went to two Pro Bowls as a Packers cornerback from 2003-09 and is in the team’s hall of fame. The rivalry, he said, is different than any other in the NFL — it’s rooted in actual hate.
“I think just the core of it, it won’t stop,” he said. “It’s great.”
Linebacker T.J. Edwards’ (9) wife is from Little Chute, Wis., about a half-hour southwest of Green Bay. His in-laws remain Packers fans. His father-in-law will wear an Edwards jersey to Lambeau Field on Sunday — but only with a Packers turtleneck underneath.
Edwards, who went to Lakes Community High School in Lake Villa and then Wisconsin, grew up a Bears fan. He can rattle off his favorite plays in the rivalry — linebacker Lance Briggs’ (10) pick-six on Christmas Day 2005 and Devin Hester’s (11) 84-yard touchdown punt return touchdown in his NFL debut the following year. Both were at Lambeau Field.
He understands the rub with his in-laws.
“I think it explains the rivalry perfectly,” he said. “I literally married into the family and they still have a hard time fully converting. I respect it.”
Ready for his rivalry debut is …
Dayo Odeyingbo (12), the Bears defensive lineman who tore his Achilles’ tendon last year before the teams played three times in six weeks.
Odeyingbo’s family had made plans to come out for the regular-season home game against the Packers at Soldier Field, using his tickets. Players on injured reserve aren’t allowed to stand on the Bears’ sideline, though, so Odeyingbo dropped his family off at the Soldier Field players’ entrance and kept driving. Chris Williams (13), who played defensive line for the Bears last year, had a 60th-floor apartment overlooking the stadium and told Odeyingbo he could watch the game from his couch.
Odeyingbo would look out the window, see celebrations after Bears touchdowns and then wait for the TV delay to catch up. That’s how he learned DJ Moore caught the 46-yard walk-off touchdown in overtime.
“For such a magical season, the way it played out at the end and into the playoffs,” he said, “it really hurt to not play in the games and really be at the games.”
Odeyingbo has been a big reason why the Bears defense has outperformed expectations, posting three sacks in four games. Last year he had just one over eight games before getting hurt.
The last Bears QB to win more than one career game at Lambeau Field was …
Rex Grossman (14), who won three-straight from 2004-06. Since then, four Bears quarterbacks have won once there: Caleb Williams (15), Jay Cutler (16), Josh McCown (17) and Brian Griese (18). If Tyson Bagent (19) follows suit, he’d be the third Bears quarterback who wasn’t a Week 1 starter to win there in 20 years, compared to only two who were.
Who hated being green?
Kermit the Frog (20), or maybe Bears fans. There are three green teams in the NFL, and the Bears have played them three weeks in a row — the Eagles, Jets and Packers. The Packers will look different than at any other point in the 214 meetings of the rivalry, though, as they’ll debut their “Rivalries” uniform Sunday.
The set was unveiled in August, with Nike describing it as “a desaturated vintage green jersey with delicate alabaster and gold stripes, paired with alabaster pants and a matching matte helmet.” The alabaster is supposed to symbolize the paper of Packers stock certificates.
The Bears will wear their own alternate when they host the Packers on Christmas Day.
Maybe they’re assembling an NBA team …
Linebacker Chris Paul (21) and cornerback Cobee Bryant (22) tried out for the Packers this week.