Fun read. Thanks.

Nice Gil. What other rivalry would come anywhere close? Minnepo and.....uh...., No. Cleveland/Baltimore, brown ravens, uh, colts...and the cardinals of St. louis/Arizo...all betrayed their fans and cities. The only other teams worthy of such legacy rivalry could be steelers, 49ers, giants....but they don't have a rival as equals.

Nice Gil. What other rivalry would come anywhere close? Minnepo and.....uh...., No. Cleveland/Baltimore, brown ravens, uh, colts...and the cardinals of St. louis/Arizo...all betrayed their fans and cities. The only other teams worthy of such legacy rivalry could be steelers, 49ers, giants....but they don't have a rival as equals.

Speaking of the 2010 NGCCG, the play I remember most is AR's shoestring tackle of Urlacher after that interception. If he doesn't hustle and make that tackle, Urlacher is likely going to the house--and the whole complexion of the game changes. It's sort of like a baseball pitcher helping his own cause with a great fielding play or timely hit.

Memories growing up out east and transplanting to WI: Overall, It doesn't matter their records, mostly clean ,hard fought ,"refs let'em play"/edge of seat games. The best rivarly in the NFL, better than KC/Oakland games.

For better or worse, I am the only person in human history to root for the Packers and the Bears.
However, I always put the Packers first!
Going to high school in Wheaton, Illinois (the same one as Red Grange, who visited while I was there in 1978), both the Packers and the Bears were lousy -- so I mostly hated on the Vikings, with the exasperatingly slippery Fran Tarkenton, as well as the Cowboys.
In the early 1980s was my first real test of Packers loyalty when I went to Northwestern University on a golf caddy scholarship with a bunch of guys from blue-collar backgrounds in and around Chicago. I was all alone in being teased with gusto when Vince Evans at quarterback, and the great Walter Payton, helped the Bears to thump the Packers 61-7.
After college, the testing heightened as a reporter at a couple of small suburban newspapers west of Chicago, and the Bears becoming a dominant team in the NFL -- with a couple of lowlights being when hefty defensive tackle William "The Refrigerator" Perry not only ran for a touchdown in one game, but then caught a pass for a touchdown in the second meeting of the year. I had one ally in the newsroom in Naperville for some support.
Still, I gladly admit to grandly enjoying the Bears do the "Super Bowl Shuffle" all the way to a victory in the Super Bowl, with huge wins along the way over the Vikings, Cowboys and 49ers.
What became especially hard was when the Packers became not only dismal in performance but dirty in sportsmanship -- with I think more than one infamous incident by the Packers, the most notable being a defender acting like a despised pro wrestler in slamming Bears quarterback Jim McMahon to the ground on his injured shoulder.
In 1989, I was actually visiting my late aunt and her family in Wauwatosa when I celebrated the winning pass from Don Majkowski to Sterling Sharpe. By the way, the Pack beat the eventual Super-Bowl champs in the 49ers that season, but even at 10-6 overall we missed the playoffs.
Thanks be to God for Brett Favre and Reggie White, things finally started going well for the Packers in the early 1990s, with one of the many memorable games being in the rain on Monday Night Football, Halloween of 1994, that was a win against the Bears.
In 2010, we beat the Bears in the last game of the regular season just to make the playoffs, then faced them a few weeks later in the NFC Championship. Besides the amazing shoestring tackle in the open field by Aaron Rodgers (after his deflating interception at the goal line) against a rambling Brian Urlacher (as fortunately remembered by a fan in a comment above), and the remarkable Raji interception for a touchdown for our side, I fondly recall Sam Shields having a big pick to seal the game on the frigid field to secure our trip to the Super Bowl.
Perhaps the best example of the overall excellence of Randall Cobb in big situations was his 4th-down catch for a winning touchdown against the Bears to put us in the playoffs in the season Rodgers came back from a broken collar bone.
Finally, the big comeback against the Bears in the season opener a couple of years ago was a great illustration of what can happen when Rodgers gets the ball out of his hands quickly -- in this case by necessity due to a bum leg.
As a huge fan of Rodgers going back even to his growing pains in his first full season as a starter, I've been hard on him at times in recent years for not taking more of the shorter throws that move the chains.
As still a huge fan, I like most of what he's doing this season in his outstanding output of MVP proportions , but still wonder if he may have some room for this kind of improvement in his decisions.
I do like the long throws a lot, and I also like him running at times (carefully) for first downs, including off of rollouts.
It's in the right mix of these things with patient selectiveness -- especially in difficult situations such as the Buccaneers game this season when things go astray -- that Rodgers may lead us to a Super Bowl as early as this season!
The ability to be disciplined -- while still going for the big score at times -- is exceedingly difficult. Being patient with a young team -- and calmly encouraging -- when mistakes are made, the momentum turns, and panic is setting in, is extremely demanding.
I'm confident that our great quarterback is up to the challenge for a rousing and rewarding finish as a Packer over the next couple of years or more.
This Sunday night against a hungry Bears team with a mauling defense may be a good test along the way.
Please excuse the length. I'm hoping that on a leisurely Saturday night/Sunday morning the ramblings of an old-timer may be more acceptable, and my fellow fans more forgiving.

My first game at Lambeau was Packers , Bears Brian Urlacher broke his wrist, and the Packers won with a late TD to Greg Jennings I think.

Great article. I'll offer up the KC Chiefs vs OAKLAND Raiders from the late sixties to the early 80s as a possible comparison for best rivalry. Len Dawson, Willie Lanier, Otis Taylor, Buck Buchanan, Ed Podalak, Jan Stenerud, George Blanda, Ken Stabler, Cliff Branch, Fred Bilitnekoff, Phil Villipiano, Dave Casper, Ray Guy, etc. John Madden and Hank Stram. Too many to name them all but as a young boy, those were the games I looked for every year. GPG

The rivalry currently stands at 99 - 95 - 6. If your going to write about it maybe a fact check is in order.

In addition, in the nearly 30 yrs the Packers have been blessed with Favre and Rodger they have made up nearly 30 games in the Win column. The bears held a commanding 23 game edge in the rivalry at the time before Favre became the starter. 27 win turnaround in about 28 yrs is pretty impressive.

A very “meh” rivalry in my opinion. There were some good games back in the olden days but mostly it has been Packers good/Bears lame or Bears good/Packers lame or both teams lame. Of course, I grew up in Wisconsin and now live in MN so I am biased but GB/ Vikings is the real rivalry.

Now we know that both Bears fans and Vikings fans are totally obnoxious and come flooding across the borders to WI every weekend like a plague of locusts but at least the rich Chicagoans spend some money here. The tight-fisted Minnesotans bring sack lunches and their own horrible beer.

And, Bears fans have nothing as annoying as that stupid horn and that goofy SKOL chant, which appears to be Norwegian for “we wish we could win something.”

While growing up in Virginia, and becoming a Packers' fan thanks to my grandfather, I read a story about new parents in Green Bay. They knew their children were off to a good start in life when the child's first words were "damn Bears!"