It's hard to blame the Chicago Bears if they feel disrespected.

They're underdogs in their own stadium to the lowest-seeded team in the NFC, the same squad they beat the last time they faced them at Soldier Field.

Despite an 11-5 record, the no. 2 seed in the NFC and a first-round bye in the playoffs, they were underdogs in 9 of 16 regular season games this season, according to FootballLocks.com.

And while the lines in Las Vegas sometimes are better indicators of what the betting public is doing rather than an objective analysis of the team two teams, the Bears are probably getting used to the underdog role nonetheless as they prepare to take on the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship game.

Head coach Lovie Smith was asked on Wednesday if the team's underdog status was bordering on comical.

"I don't know if I'd say comical," said Smith, "but it's definitely been a part of what we've dealt with this year. You know, coming out of nowhere, it's not like a lot of people expected us to be in this position. The Packers were supposed to be in this position, so I guess I can see why."

Prior to the season the Bears were 30-1 odds to win the Super Bowl while the Packers were only 11-1 odds (according to Bodog.com). Now both teams are only a game away from reaching the NFL's title game.

Smith knows better than to get bogged down by who's the favorite and who's not. He's aware that every team in the playoffs is good.

"It's pretty hard to say a team should be an underdog in the playoffs," said Smith. "We've played them, of course, twice this year. We've had two great games. Last game up at their place, it went right down until the end. I expect it to be the same type of game. Whether we're an underdog or not, we'll see."

As for the Packers, they enter Sunday's matchup as 3.5-point favorites. In fact, they were favored in both regular season meetings against the Bears this season, including in the Week 17 finale when they were favored by 11.5 points in a game that the Bears essentially had nothing to play for, their playoff seeding fate already sealed by kickoff. The Packer won 10-3.

Green Bay then won two road games – both as betting underdogs in the wild card win over the Philadelphia Eagles and the divisional round victory over the Atlanta Falcons – to advance to the NFC Championship. Linebacker A.J. Hawk pled ignorance to the Packers' status, however.

"It doesn't really matter to us, honestly," said Hawk on Monday. "I didn't know that we were underdogs the last two. I didn't realize we were the favorite for this one.

"Whoever is making up those lines or doing whatever, the good thing it doesn't really have an impact on our team, what we're going to do. But that's good. We'll take it either way. We're going to go out there and do our job."

Head coach Mike McCarthy said, essentially, the same thing.

"[We're] nobody’s underdog. We’re nobody’s favorite, either," said McCarthy. "I think that's our motto today as a team. This group has a lot of confidence. We've never wavered from our goals. We've had challenges, everybody does. But we're here for a reason. We deserve to be here, and we're excited about getting to Chicago."

Regardless of the Packers' recent string of success in four consecutive victories in both the regular season and the playoffs, they've faced challenges along the way.

Back-to-back losses in mid-December to the Detroit Lions and New England Patriots put them in a position where they had to win the final two games of the regular season to even qualify for the playoffs. Along the way, McCarthy said the team's goal has never wavered.

"We've never lost sight of it because it's always right behind me every day when I speak to the team," said McCarthy. "I pointed to that again this morning, and we're halfway there. We talked about 16 quarters as a football team. We've completed eight of them. And we need to capture these four in Chicago, and it puts us closer to getting that picture on the wall.

"It's a goal that's still in front of us and it was a goal when we started and it's still a goal today."