'Ruin it for them': Behind the Chicago Bears' mentality ahead of a season finale vs. Green Bay in a lost year

At this time next week, plenty will be murky surrounding the Chicago Bears football franchise.

The only guarantee for next week is that the team will be head-first in a coaching search as it looks to enter a new era led by a new head coach and Caleb Williams.

Aside from that, the only other guarantee this Bears team has is one final game. That's a Week 18 game at Lambeau Field against the Green Bay Packers.

That's the message from the coaching staff.

"The Packers is what should be talked about. Nothing else should be talked about in my personal opinion," Bears special teams coordinator Richard Hightower said on Thursday. "Not next year, not anything should be talked about other than the focus of beating the Packers."

Message received.

The Bears get one more chance to break their 10-game losing streak that began on the fateful October evening where Noah Brown caught Jayden Daniels' Hail Mary pass. Since then, the Bears have changed offensive play callers and head coaches. Injuries have sunk the team, too.

Still, there's one more game for the Bears to wash away their losing streak while also getting a chance to stick it to the Packers, too. 

"You can still try to ruin it for them," Bears running backs coach Chad Morton said. "If it worsens their seeding, like, let's go."

Let's get the elephant in the room out quickly. Once the clock strikes zeros in the fourth quarter of Sunday's game, barring overtime, the Bears' season will end. Green Bay is playoff-bound.

After that, everything is going to change. The players know this.

"New coach comes in, he brings in a whole new team," Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson said, "You don't know what you have until you know what you have. And that's not until the off season when we go through the free agency, we go through the draft and things like that heading into camp. So we'll see what it is. We'll see who returns, who doesn't and we'll just see where they build the team from there."

There isn't anything the Bears can do to ease the idea that Green Bay remains on a path that's contending for a Super Bowl. Still, the Bears could put together a game that hands the Packers' their sixth loss of the season.

It's a challenge, especially coming at Lambeau Field. The Bears haven't beaten Green Bay since 2018, but haven't won at Lambeau since 2015.

Bears fans don't need a reference point for that, but second-year receiver Tyler Scott put that into some perspective.

"That was coming off Ohio State's national championship. Back when Luke Fickell, who my college coach was, was at Ohio State," Scott said. "I'm just sitting here like, man, that's a long time. I was in the eighth grade going into my freshman year."

A Chicago Bears helmet is pictured before a preseason game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Chicago Bears on August 17, 2024, at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. (Joseph Weiser/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Course-correcting that history in a Week 18 game that's going to be the last for this team and coaching staff is what the Bears are focusing on.

The coaches have preached this in their meetings, in both position meetings and team-wide meetings. It's cliché to say this is the Bears' Super Bowl, but there's nothing for the Bears to lose. A win would at least send the Bears into the offseason with a little lifted morale and their first win against the Packers in six years.

Cliché or not, that's what Morton said. 

"That's my mentality of telling guys like that. Everybody's fired up, ready to go," Morton said. "We got to beat these guys."

Beating the Packers would be something the Bears had not done under Matt Eberflus. It would also be Thomas Brown's first win as interim head coach.

Laugh at the Bears if you want to, but you can't fault them for thinking this way. This is a team that's been clawing for any form of positivity since Week 8 and has found ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Getting one over the Packers by any means would be the best form of positivity the Bears could achieve getting the circumstances.

"Just to beat them too, and go out beating them," Morton said. "Road game at their place. You can't get any better than that."

Bears to miss three players vs. Packers

The Bears final injury report has the Bears down three players in the season finale.

Running back Travis Homer, left guard Teven Jenkins and safety Elijah Hicks will all miss Sunday's game against Green Bay.

Jenkins, who left the game against Detroit and missed the Dec. 26 game against Seattle, is in the final year of his rookie contract and may have played the last snap of his Chicago Bears' career.