Stink Stank Stunk

Because this is, incredibly, the first time the Bears and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] have met in a regular-season finale with a title on the line, the matchup somehow should seem a little more awesome and a little less awkward.
Losing is rarely embarrassing in today's NFL, yet the Bears and Packers have a way of limping instead of marching into these confrontations. Both are finishing full speed backward. The likewise defenseless Cowboys are the only winning team the Bears and Packers have beaten since before Thanksgiving.
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But this is the Bears and Packers and because league rules require somebody to win the NFC North Division, it might as well be one of these two storied if staggered rivals.
The Lions beat the Bears and Packers three out of four meetings this season and won more NFC North games than any other team. Yet the Lions had the good sense to slink off stage before risking national scrutiny from Seattle or Carolina or San Francisco or Philadelphia or New Orleans or Arizona, wherever the NFC North survivor is eventually sentenced in the playoffs.
The NFC North is the only division in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] guaranteed to have only one team finish above .500. It is the only division in football with three defenses that have given up more than 400 points.
This is the division of Butkus and Nitschke and Schmidt and Page?
Once heralded as the Black and Blue division, it is once again the Bleak and Boo. All four members lost last week, three of them with something to play for, two of them at home including the Lions, hooted out of Ford Field.
Now it comes down to the Bears and Packers and on the day after Christmas, a Bears-Packers finale for the division title suddenly seems like a gift even if it has the suspicious appearance of a gag gift. Memories are short in football and it's a good thing. The Bears and Packers have played 187 games and only a handful of them ever meant more than local winter bragging rights.
For fans in Wisconsin and Illinois, the aura always trumps the aroma. Sunday in Soldier Field is their Super Bowl. Nobody much cares how their teams got here or what happens afterward.
This latest drama could have been avoided, of course. The Eagles were playing an exhibition game against a Bears' team with everything to gain. The Bears could have rendered the Packers irrelevant, just like they could have in the 2010 season finale.
In that one, the Bears won the division and could have eliminated the Packers from the playoffs, but no. They wanted a real showdown and then subsequently wound up losing the NFC title game to the Packers on their way to the Super Bowl.
It's almost as if George Halas and Vince Lombardi are directing this theater just to keep the Bears-Packers legend alive.
The Bears and Packers have played each other in only 10 regular-season finales in their 93 previous years together. The Cardinals were a more frequent final Bears' opponent during their years (1920-59) as Chicago's other NFL team. That matchup rarely meant much in the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] either, by the way, but it sure stoked the North Side-South Side feud.

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For Bears' fans, Sunday's event has meaning beyond a division title. It is the biggest game of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Jay Cutler's life. His future with the Bears should be framed by whether he comes up big or small against either of the Packers quarterbacks, Aaron Rodgers or Matt Flynn.
Quarterbacks play the lead roles in any rivalry, as Sid Luckman, Jim McMahon, Bart Starr and Brett Favre can attest. When the Bears beat the Packers twice on their way to their 1963 title, it didn't hurt that Starr missed one of the games with injury. When the Packers kept the Bears from the playoffs in a memorable 1968 season finale, the Bears were unable to beat the Packers' third-string quarterback, Don Horn.
Cutler is 1-7 with 17 interceptions against the archrivals. If six straight losses to the Packers [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Lovie Smith his coaching job, players need to pay attention to their records as well.
Josh McCown was the quarterback when the Bears won in Lambeau Nov. 4. His performance as Cutler's backup this season gave Chicagoans something they never thought they would see — a Bears' team with more quarterbacks than linebackers.

Apparently Rodgers is starting on Sunday... so a team that came within 5 points of going 0-8 without him is going to have a legit chance to win the division... JFC