The Green Bay Packers have heard this kind of talk before. Luther Burden III, the Chicago Bears wide receiver who spent last season trading barbs with cornerback Keisean Nixon, is ready to pick the argument back up when Chicago comes to Lambeau Field in Week 5.
Asked Monday about the viral back-and-forth and the chippiness that comes with this series, Burden did not back off.
“I mean it’s a rivalry game, so stuff can get out of hand or whatever the case may be,” he said. “So I’m with it all.”
From the Packers’ side of the field, that is less a warning than a reminder of the job Nixon already has.
Nixon is not a quiet corner, and he has never needed a Bears receiver to tell him what this matchup is. The oldest rivalry in the league does not require a new chapter from a second-year pass catcher to stay bitter. What it does require is a defense that can still answer after a brutal Monday.
Edgerrin Cooper’s season is over. The linebacker tore his Achilles in Sunday’s 17-14 win at Tampa Bay, confirmed by imaging after he was carted off in the third quarter.
He had been the defense’s most reliable playmaker while Micah Parsons stayed on the physically unable to perform list, with 21 tackles and two sacks through three games and a sack, an interception and nine more stops before he went down against the Buccaneers.
Matt LaFleur said Monday that Parsons will not practice this week, which takes a debut against Chicago off the table. Isaiah McDuffie and Zaire Franklin will have to hold the second level without the player who had been filling the hole Parsons left.
Burden also described the mood inside Ben Johnson’s building.
“I feel like he wants to beat them really bad, like everybody else in the room, every Chicago fan,” Burden said of his coach. “We just want to beat them real bad and make them quit.”
That is the language of a team that arrives as a three-point favorite even though Caleb Williams will miss a third straight game with a Grade 2 hamstring strain. Johnson has kept him week to week and said Williams is attacking his rehab, but the quarterback will not practice. Tyson Bagent gets the start.
“Tyson will be the guy, and we’ll go forward from there,” Johnson said.
For Green Bay, that is the cleaner read. The Bears can talk about making the Packers quit.
They will have to do it at Lambeau, with a backup quarterback, against a secondary that already includes the corner Burden spent last year arguing with. Nixon does not need the invitation. The injuries are the problem. The noise is the part Green Bay has answered for a century.
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