PALM BEACH, Fla. — It didn’t take Ben Johnson long to take a perfunctory shot at the Packers. The day he was introduced as the Bears’ head coach, he said that, “to be quite frank with you, I kind of enjoyed beating Matt LaFleur twice a year.”
The Packers head coach heard him.
“I’m sure he’s playing to the fans a little bit,” he told Packers reporters Tuesday at the NFL’s annual meeting. “It is what it is. I’m not going to lose too much sleep over that.”
Johnson and LaFleur haven’t interacted often and didn’t have a previous relationship before Johnson’s hiring. Johnson told the Sun-Times that the two were cordial when they first saw each other at the meeting.
“Shook hands,” he said.
With Johnson as the play-caller, the Lions went 5-1 against the Packers over the previous three seasons. Before that, they’d beaten Green Bay five times in the previous seven seasons.