What it means to me to be a Chicago bear, it's an easy question.

It means everything to me.

That means rich tradition, black and blue division, defense, legends, linebackers.

The history of it.

I mean, I'm a big history guy, so understanding this was one of the first franchises,

just kind of blows my mind, honestly, that was able to be a part of that.

The city, just the nostalgia of playing for a story franchise,

the story franchise of the running back position,

with guys like Gail Sayers and Walter Payton and being able to follow in those footsteps. So being a bear means everything.

I mean, what more can you say?

Welcome in to a special edition of the Undercenter podcast. I'm J.J. Stankovitz here for NBC

Sports Chicago. We've got a good one for you today. I had a chance to sit down with NBC's Sunday night football crew

and get their thoughts on the Bears heading into Thursday night's season opener against the Green Bay Packers,

which you can watch on NBC.

So on the first half of this podcast, you'll hear from Al Michaels, Chris Collinsworth,

Michelle Tofoya, Mike Tariko, and Rodney Harrison.

They all really know their stuff with the Bears. They all had a lot of really interesting things to say about this team. So that's

going to be the first half of this podcast. I won't keep you waiting any longer. Let's get right to

it with my sit down with Al Michaels. All right, so Al, you got to call a couple games at Soldier Field

last year.

What stood out to you about the way that the atmosphere kind of grew in that building from

the Vikings game to the Rams game to the playoff game?

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