Chicago Bears wide receiver Luther Burden seemingly gave the Green Bay Packers too much extra motivation ahead of their showdown at Lambeau Field Sunday.
Green Bay dismantled their NFC North rivals, 31-7, with Chicago benching their backup, Tyson Bagent, in favor of their other backup, Case Keenum, late in the game. That didn’t prove any more effective, as the Bears probably needed their dynamic starter, Caleb Williams, on the field to win.
After the game, Packers linebacker Zaire Franklin slammed the opposing team for what they said leading up to the game, and put particular focus on Burden.
“Extremely disrespectful. That was something that we just took extremely personal,” Franklin said of the Bears’ trash-talking this past week.
“You know, we see all the little weird stuff they be doing in the media and all the different stuff they be saying. You got guys who never really made a real play in this league talking about make somebody quit, that’s weird. We don’t do that,” Franklin said.
“He quit today, by the way. He didn’t want to play anymore,” the Pro Bowl linebacker said. “We focus on ourselves. We ain’t really worried about that.”
On Monday, Burden told reporters about the message head coach Ben Johnson had for the team regarding the Packers rivalry.
“He wants to beat them really bad like everyone else in the room, like every Chicago fan. Beat them real bad, and make them quit,” he told reporters, recalling his coach’s comments.
Burden finished as the Bears’ top receiver on Sunday, but it was far from a career performance. He finished with four receptions for 47 yards and no touchdowns. The Bears’ sole touchdown came from D’Andre Swift, who had just 43 rushing yards all game.
Franklin was among his team’s stars on defense, finishing with nine total tackles and a forced fumble. Teammate Evan Williams had 12 tackles as part of a ferocious effort from the fired-up Packers defense.
As a team, Green Bay recorded four sacks and three interceptions on the Bears’ quarterbacks, never allowing them to get much of anything going on offense. One has to imagine this will be a much-different game at Chicago’s Soldier Field when the team’s meet again in December.
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