The Bears are coming off winning the NFC North a year ago where expectations were somewhat high due to the arrival of Ben Johnson, but this year the expectations have grown immensely. The Bears are not going to sneak up on anyone, and many teams probably have them circled on their schedule.
The schedule this season will be much tougher because of that division win. As the cliché goes, however, “if you want to be the best you have to beat the best.” The Bears may not be at the top of the contender list to begin the year, but they should be in the mix at the very least. The goal should definitely be another playoff berth and a deeper run than last season.
The NFC North is expected to be one of the better divisions in football again in 2026. We obviously knew the Bears would face the Packers, Vikings, and Lions twice but now we know at least a couple of those matchups will be on national television on holidays.
Bears set to face Lions on Thanksgiving and Packers on Christmas Day in 2026
Every Bears fan remembers Thanksgiving in 2024 in clear detail. Matt Eberflus cost them a win over the Lions in one of the most despicable coaching displays in some time. That led to the Bears firing him mid-season, which they never do, and the rest is history.
This season the Bears will return to Detroit for a Thanksgiving Day matchup as Ben Johnson will look for his first win in Detroit against his former team. Despite winning the division last season, the Bears lost to the Lions in both matchups with the first one being an absolute disaster.
Both games in the regular season against the Packers last season were thrillers with the teams splitting 1-1. The Bears got the last laugh as they defeated them in dramatic fashion in the Wild Card game, but the league clearly took notice of all those matchups as they scheduled them to meet on Christmas Day this year.
This game will be at home and will likely have a big impact on the playoff picture. It is obviously tough to say how the teams will match up that late in the season with unknown injuries and potential trades, but nonetheless it should be another great game for everyone to enjoy on Christmas.
It has been quite a while since Bears fans could see a schedule with multiple holiday games and not begin to assume their holidays will be ruined. This is a new era of Bears football, and they will look to be the ones ruining the holidays for others versus having theirs ruined.
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