It has been 13 years since an NFC North team played in the Super Bowl. That streak won’t last much longer.
Two of the final four teams in the NFC playoffs are from the North — the Packers will travel to the top-seeded 49ers on Saturday and the Lions will be a heavy favorite when they host the Buccaneers on Sunday.
Even if neither North team advances to the Super Bowl, they have futures even brighter than their present. That complicates an already-daunting task for the Bears. In the two years since general manager Ryan Poles vowed to “take the North and never give it back,” the Bears have watched all three of their divisional rivals make the playoffs.
The 2022 Vikings were a mirage. They went 13-4 despite being outscored on the season, then lost in the first round of the playoffs.
These Packers seem a year ahead of schedule, while the Lions dominated the NFC all season. Their victory last Sunday against the Rams was their first playoff win in 32 years.
“We’ve been saying it all year,” Lions quarterback Jared Goff told reporters this week. “It’s about this team. It has nothing to do with the last 30 years here.”
That’s a scary thought for the Bears, who have always been able to look down their noses at Detroit. Even scarier: While the Vikings’ future is as murky as their quarterback situation — Kirk Cousins is a free agent while recovering from a torn Achilles tendon — the Lions and Packers have every reason to think they can return to the playoffs for years to come.
“You’re either getting better or you’re getting worse — you’re never staying the same,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur told reporters this week. “Thankfully our guys approach it the right way — we have a lot to prove — and continue to push one another and have gotten better. We’ve seen that progress. It’s fun to be a part of that.”
Both have figured out the toughest riddle in all of sports. The Packers’ Jordan Love has the third-best passer rating among quarterbacks who threw at least 250 passes since Week 9, while Goff ranks fourth.
Love, who had a 157.2 passer rating in the Packers’ defeat of the Cowboys, has a chance Saturday to pass Joe Theismann for the best rating in the first two playoff games of a player’s career. On Sunday, Goff is seeking to become the first player to complete at least three-quarters of his passes in three consecutive playoff games.
The Packers are the youngest team in the NFL, adjusted for snap counts. The Lions are fifth.
Three of the Lions’ five Pro Bowl players are only 23 — defensive end Aidan Hutchinson, tight end Sam LaPorta and offensive tackle Penei Sewell.
The Packers — who, curiously, did not have a player picked for the Pro Bowl — rely on a democratic offensive approach. No receiver finished with more than 800 yards this season despite Love throwing for 4,159, the 12th-most in Packers history and more than any Bears quarterback ever. The Packers have had six players lead the team in receiving yards in their last eight games, and all are first- or second-year players.
The Bears have youth on their side, too. They just fielded the third-youngest team in the NFL, adjusted for snap counts. That roster figures to get even younger — and likely better — if the Bears decide to draft USC quarterback Caleb Williams first overall.
That’s one of the most compelling reasons to draft Williams — to keep up with a division that, during the course of the season, went from wide open to one of the strongest in the NFL. NFC North teams totaled 35 wins, tied for second-most behind the league-leading AFC North.
Before Week 1, the Bears thought there was an opening for them to make a run for the top of the division. The season ended the way it has for the last 13 years, though. Since the Packers won the Super Bowl, the Bears haven’t won a playoff game. The Packers have won eight, the Vikings two. And now even the Lions, for the first time since 1991, have a playoff victory.
Last week, Bears coach Matt Eberflus rattled off 10 first- and second-year starters and contributors for the Bears. There were three cornerbacks (Kyler Gordon, Tyrique Stevenson and Terell Smith), two defensive tackles (Zacch Pickens and Gervon Dexter), two offensive linemen (Braxton Jones and Darnell Wright), safety Jaquan Brisker, linebacker Jack Sanborn and wide receiver Tyler Scott.
Eberflus called the second-year players a “foundational piece” of the Bears and the rookies part of a “really strong draft class.”
“There’s a long game to this,” he said.
The Lions and Packers see it, too. And they’re playing it better.
