There’s plenty of history between the Bears and the Green Bay Packers. Aaron Rodgers shared some inappropriate history in the storied rivalry ahead of the team’s meeting on Sunday.
On Wednesday, Rodgers was asked if he had any favorite Bears players, either from the past or one to play against. His answer was Brian Urlacher.
“I have a ton of respect for him,” Rodgers said of Urlacher. “I’ve gotten to know him off the field. Now I like him a lot more now that he’s not sacking me or picking me off. He got me a couple times over the years. I did tackle him one time though. It wasn’t much of a tackle, but he fell, thankfully, on that play. I have a ton of respect for his game and what he accomplished in the league.”
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From when Rodgers took over the starting job for the Packers in 2008 until Urlacher retired after the 2012 season, they played nine games, including playoffs, against each other. Rodgers’ Packers won seven of those, but Urlacher did manage three interceptions and had 1.5 sacks of Rodgers.
Rodgers continued his story with something from the 2009 season opener in Green Bay. Urlacher was apparently trying to mess with Rodgers when it came to checking plays.
“Every time I checked, he checked to something,” Rodgers said. “The checks he was saying were super inappropriate. I think it was pre-micing up of the guards where every single word was heard because I promise you, if that had happened today, some of that stuff would have had to get bleeped out, but we had a lot of fun with it.”
The two have golfed together since Urlacher’s retirement and Rodgers brought that game up to Urlacher. That gave him an opportunity to figure out what the deal was.
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“We joked about some of those checks,” Rodgers said. “I can still remember some of the crazy stuff he was saying out there and I always wondered was any of that stuff real or were you just effing around? We had some good laughs about that, but he was a lot of fun to play against and a great player.”
Urlacher didn’t have a big individual impact on that game. He had three tackles and one quarterback hit. The Packers won 21-15.
As for if the inappropriate checks were legit, Urlacher claimed he was on to the Packers’ checks.
“He said a lot of them were real,” Rodgers said. “They would come up with it specifically for Packers week. I told him we were dummy checking on him sometimes, but he said that he had a beat on when we were checking and they would come up with specific dirty checks to combat anything we were trying to do.”
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