Chicago Bears Rewind: Top 5 Most Influential Games Vs. The Green Bay Packers (1st of 5)

The longstanding rivalry between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears needs no flattering superlatives nor hyperbole to justify what it has meant to the citizens of Wisconsin and Illinois, not to mention the storied lore that is woven into the fabric of the NFL’s history.

On Sunday, November 17, the two adversaries will revisit their discord for the 209th time, the most played between two teams. The Packers lead the series 107-95-6.

Starting today and continuing over the next nine days, this series of trips down Memory Lane to revisit games from the past will serve as a countdown of the ten most defining games in this border feud and a way to get Packers and Bears fans ready for their newest installment of the grudge. The five most impactful games from a Chicago Bears standpoint come first–in chronological order–then five from the Green Bay Packers point of view follow. The author will leave it up to the readers to argue about which games were more defining and memorable.

The first key game in this football squabble marked the changing of the guard in the NFL’s elite. Vince Lombardi’s Packers were two-time defending NFL champions and looking for a three-peat, but Papa Bear George Halas and his Monsters of the Midway set out in November of 1963 to dethrone the champs on the way to their own championship glory.

Chicago Bears Most Influential Game vs. Green Bay Packers, Part 1: November 17, 1963

A monumental contest between the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears took place on November 17, 1963, on the north side of Chicago at Wrigley Field. Just five days before the nation reeled because of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the game, which was massive because both sides came into the game with identical 8-1 records, was not shown in the Chicago area.

Interestingly, back in 1963, television viewing of professional football was not as it is today. The website wrhistoricalsociety.com explained: “The NFL routinely blacked-out home games. In some cases, even the NFL championship game wasn’t shown in the city where the contest was held. The blackouts were meant to ensure that fans bought tickets to games and that they didn’t just stay home to root for their squad. November 17, 1963, was one of these days. The National Football League enforced a 75-mile blackout area for a football game between the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers. So that meant thousands of Bears fans couldn’t even watch the game from the comfort of their living rooms.”

In the picture below, many people made alternative plans to digest the game and huddled around a Chicago-area radio center to get accounts of the game.

In the first game of the season, the Bears beat the Packers in Green Bay, 10-3, for their only loss, so revenge, and an inside track to the league’s championship game, weighed heavily in the minds of Packers’ players and coaches.

It did not matter, because the Bears never allowed the Packers to make it a competitive game.

Chicago Bears 26, Green Bay Packers 7…and it Wasn’t That Close

The Packers entered the Week 10 game shorthanded. Starting star quarterback Bart Starr injured his hand in October and would not be available, so backup John Roach filled his spot.

In front of a sold-out Wrigley Field crowd of 49,166–where some wealthy and motivated fans paid upwards of $75 to scalpers to attend because of the blackout rule–and in unseasonably warm 67-degree temperatures, the Bears’ defense held the vaunted Packer offense to three points and just 150 yards of offense in their earlier win, and more of the same continued in their second meeting. Bear defenders intercepted five Packers passes–two from Roach, and three more from Zeke Bratkowski–and forced two fumbles while limiting Green Bay to a meaningless touchdown in the final minutes.

The Bears jumped out to a 13-0 halftime lead thanks to two Roger LeClerc field goals and a scintillating 27-yard scoring scamper by Willie Galimore. This effort earned Galimore a spot on the cover of Sports Illustrated the following week.

Two more field goals from LeClerc and a five-yard touchdown run by quarterback Billy Wade made the score 26-0 in the fourth quarter before the Packers managed to light the scoreboard.

Bears’ defensive end Ed O’Bradovich knew his teammates were ready for whatever the Packers would throw at them. “Everybody knew what the Packers did. They had the end sweep to Boyd Dowler, the passes to Boyd Dowler, Taylor and Hornung blasting away at you. They ran a lot of trap plays. We knew exactly where they were going to go, and they made no bones about it either, by the way. They said, ‘This is what you’re going to do, and you know what? Stop us. Well, we found out a way to stop them. We did stop them.”

What did it Mean? Chicago Bears, 1963 NFL Champions

The Bears finished the regular season in the Western Division with an 11-1-2 record, one-half game ahead of the Packers, who ended with 11 wins, TWO losses (both to the Bears), and one tie. This allowed the Bears to advance to the NFL Championship game against the Eastern Division champions New York Giants.

The game was played in much different conditions than the November game; it was 10 degrees Fahrenheit at kickoff. It was a brutal battle, and two short touchdown runs by Billy Wade were the difference in the Bears’ 14-10 victory for the NFL crown, one they would not recapture until their magical 1985 Super Bowl XX victory.

In terms of the Packers-Bears rivalry, this game proved to Chicago players and coaches that the big, bad Cheeseheads could not only be beaten once but twice in 1963. The second meeting of the year proved to be the springboard the Bears needed to championship immortality. It also meant the Packers failed in their three-peat quest, which made it all the sweeter for Bear Nation.