Ben Johnson arrived at Halas Hall after becoming Bears head coach and the team's rivalry with the Green Bay Packers suddenly seemed even more intense when he explained why he wanted to stay in the NFC North after he had been Lions offensive coordinator for three years.
"And to be quite frank with you, I kind of enjoyed beating Matt LaFleur twice a year," he said of the Packers coach.
Johnson should really love this year's December Bears schedule then, because he gets to face LaFleur's team twice in a period of three games.
It's apparently a steady diet of cheese for the Bears.
First the Bears travel to Green Bay for a Dec. 7 noon game, then they play Saturday, Dec. 20 at a time yet to be determined, against the Packers at Soldier Field. Initial reports say the game will start at either 3:30 p.m. or 6 p.m.
In between those games they have a home game with the Cleveland Browns Dec. 14 at noon.
The Bears and Packers have met twice in three games on regular occasion in the distant past, but this is the first time the rivals played each other twice in three scheduled games since 1998.
The Bears actually played the Packers twice in a period of three games in 2010 but it wasn't scheduled. They closed the regular season losing at Green Bay, then beat Seattle in the divisional playoffs and finally lost to Green Bay the next week in the NFC Championship Game at Soldier Field. Also, it wasn't twice in three games for the Packers because they had to win two playoff games to get to the NFC Championship Game and not one.
Bears fans who like to read cosmic coincidence into the schedule will love this: The last time they faced each other twice in a three-week period before 1998 was 1985, the year the Bears won the Super Bowl.
That time the two games occurred in a period of 13 days. The Bears beat Green Bay 23-7 at Soldier Field in a game when Williams "The Refrigerator" Perry scored on a TD dive. Then, after beating the Vikings 27-9, they went to Lambeau Field and won 16-10 in a game when Perry caught a TD pass.
