The black and blue division is back.

The number one spot in the NFC North up for grabs, a quarterback making an MVP push.

The best running game in the NFL on the other side, it's Packers Bears, and it's a crossover Thursday.

Let's go.

You are locked on NFL crossover, part of the Locked On podcast network.

Your team every day.

Welcome inside another crossover Thursday, Locked on Packers, Locked on Bears. I'm Peter Bikowski, host of Locked on Packers. I am with our pal Lauren Cox from Locked on Bears for Lauren, I was saying to my audience earlier this week, I think the biggest Packers game in over a decade, Packers Bears game. And I don't know if there's, I can't think of a game that had more stakes for both teams. There's been bigger Bears games. I think against the Packers, like that Mitch Trubisky season,

they win. That was a big one for Chicago, but it was a bad Green Bay season. This, this feels like,

to me, the biggest Packers, Bears game that we've had since the Randall Cobb catch in 2013.

And it'll be the biggest one we've had until two weeks from now. Right. The biggest Bears Packers game. Like these, it's collectively these two games are super critically important, not only for just like NFC North, who's going to be first place, but then also the playoff seating that then plays off of that. Like there is so much at stake. The other three games left on the schedule matter much, much less for both of these teams. It feels like the cluster of games we had in 2010, where the Packers play the Bears, the last week of the season. The Bears have nothing to play for. And Lovie Smith decides to play his guys and they lose. They lose the game at Lambo. Green Bay gets in. They get to the playoffs. We remember what happened in the NFC championship game in Chicago for anyone that doesn't remember BJ Raji sealed the game on a pick six. It was actually Sam Seals who really, I had forgotten that that game still, even after the BJ Raji interception, still came down to a interception on the last drive against

Caleb Haney. And the Packers won the Super Bowl that year. That comparison, maybe we can make it

in a couple weeks. Maybe we can make it in six weeks when one of these teams is making a deep

playoff run. So we'll hold off on that for now. Lauren, I want to ask you flat out, this team is the number one seat in the NFC.

How good are they really, though?

So I don't think they're like, quote unquote, the best team in the NFC, but I also think we look at the NFC right now and go, who is actually really good?

Who is infallible?

And I think the bears are right there in that conversation with everyone else.

Like I still find myself feeling like even though the Rams just lost to the Panthers,

they're probably the best team in the NFC.

But beating the Eagles the way that the bears did and seeing the, the Rams lose to the Panthers,

see the Packers lose to the Panthers and Browns.

All these teams have lost to bad teams.

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