The Packers had every reason to feel the game slipping away late in the fourth quarter. Momentum tilted, and it looked like Green Bay might let this one get away. But they closed it out. And everyone expected HC Matt LaFleur to drop some bombs in the post-game presser. Instead, he put up a nonchalant facade.

Asked whether he took any extra satisfaction in the result after Ben Johnson’s comment about beating him twice a year, LaFleur brushed it aside without much thought.

“Absolutely not. It’s Packers-Bears,” the Packers head coach said. “It’s a great rivalry and certainly with what was at stake in regards to positioning in the NFC North, that’s the only thing that matters. It was a quick handshake, and we’ll see them again in 2 weeks.”

This one mattered. The winner of the division earns

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