Not-So-Patiently Counting Down the 163 Days Until the Bears-Packers Opener and Other Bullets

Nothing made me want to go back to bed quicker than seeing two white hairs in my beard that definitely weren’t there yesterday. Ah, well. I’ll just have to power through it and act like everything is fine. Let’s do this!

  • Is it September 5 yet?
  • Have you ever witnessed a better debut showing than what Khalil Mack put on when the Bears and Packers opened up the Sunday Night Football slate in 2018? One sack, one forced fumble, one recovered fumble, 1 interception that was returned for a touchdown. The only thing missing from that stat line is a win for his team, but you can’t put any blame on Mack for that one.
  • For as maddening as that opening-night loss to Green Bay was, it’s says something about what the 2018 Bears represented that it turned into a springboard for a 12-win, division-clinching season. Truly a testament to the players and coaches for not letting one bad loss on a prime-time stage derail a dream season. It’s that kind of bounce-back that needs to happen again after their soul-crushing loss to the Eagles in the postseason. And there is no better place to do it than on Thursday Night Football during the season-opening game in the team’s 100th season at Soldier Field against an arch enemy.
  • History in the making:
  • To heck with the idea of waiting 163 more days. I want it now!
  • In the meantime, I’ll be looking forward to this:
  • In case you’re curious, StubHub has already sent me push notifications to inform me tickets are already available for sale for the Sept. 5 grudge-match against the Packers. As of this posting, the cheapest tickets in the house are a pair in section 430, row 32 that costs $294 each. I hope you started putting away some money yesterday.
  • Seriously, you couldn’t have picked a better matchup to open up the season than than what the NFL has put forth. The league isn’t perfect, but it does scheduling and prime-time correctly.
  • Check out new running back Mike Davis and Mitch Trubisky getting to know each other on a football level:
  • Tarik Cohen was almost perfect in 2018:
  • I’d bet on Tarik getting that 100% in 2019.
  • LOL:
  • Over at the league’s meetings in Arizona, go ahead and find your favorite coach:
  • Matt Nagy is certainly a bold one. Not for his wardrobe choice, but for standing next to Doug Pederson in the photo. Long-time friendship aside, I’m not sure I’d have it in me to stand next to the coach whose team eliminated my squad from the postseason last year. Wouldn’t even be close to being interested in that scenario. But Nagy has a stronger will than I do, which is one of the many reason’s he’s a professional football coach and I am a professional football-coach watcher.
  • The breakdown of the coaches photo here is unlike anything you’ve ever seen:
  • Gaming laptops, desk bikes, and power tools are among Amazon’s Deals of the Day today.
  • written by

    Luis C. Medina, who you can find on Twitter at lcm1986, has been covering the Chicago Bears at Bleacher Nation since 2017. Since then, he has written about 3 head coaches, 5 play-callers, and 11 starting quarterbacks. Previously, Luis wrote about the Cubs and MLB at BN (2015-16) and worked in the Chicago Tribune sports department (2011-16). He also co-hosted a Cubs postgame show, Outside the Ivy, in 2019.

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