🤐 Enjoying the silence of Packers fans

Plus: Hannah Gadsby this Thursday. [View this email in your browser]( [READER Logo]( Daily Reader | September 10, 2024 As a long-suffering Chicago Bears fan, I can tell you that no sound is as silent as the silence of Green Bay Packers fans after an opening week like this one. For their season openers, the Bears won (they beat the Tennessee Titans) and the Packers lost (to the Philadelphia Eagles). Poor babies. For you football rookies out there, the Bears and the Packers have one of the NFL’s oldest rivalries. This inspires intense passion among their fans. Packers fans usually have so much to say, with the way the rivalry has gone over the last few decades. But after Sunday’s Bears triumph . . . not so much. The Packers fans I know were so silent for so long that I started to worry. Were they okay? Were their phones working? Did they know that the Bears (once down by 17) had roared back to win? “I’d better check,” I thought to myself. So I sent texts to each of my friends of the Packers persuasion. Folks, let me tell you, few things in life are as much fun as tormenting Packers fans. In fact, if Paul Simon were to rewrite “[The Sound of Silence]( based on this situation, it would go like this . . . “Hello Packers fans, my friends / I’ve come to talk some trash to you again / Don’t pretend that you’re above it all / You’d do the same if our rally failed / And you’d still be cracking wise about Caleb’s first half demise / But instead, your phones . . . are silent” Just so you know, I have three Packers fans in my life. Their names are (in no particular order) Kevin, Brian, and Matt. So I texted each an image of the current National Football Conference (NFC) standings in which my gloriously undefeated Bears are tied for first and their pathetically winless Packers are in last. One more time: Bears first, Packers last. And then I sat back and waited for what I knew would be some dumb responses. Sure enough, they delivered. Brian: “Caleb didn’t score.” Kevin: “Reminds me of that time the Packers spotted the Bears 20 points and still won the game in the 2nd half!” Matt: “Ha! Enjoy it while it lasts. Caleb looks like Fields 2.0.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. What would Paul Simon say? Oh, yes . . . “And in the naked light I saw / ten thousand cheeseheads, maybe more / cheeseheads sobbing in their beer / cheeseheads sobbing in despair / with QB Jordan injured they’re out of luck / with QB Jordan injured . . . oh, my god, they suck / And their phones are silent” As if my first text wasn’t enough fun, I followed up with a replay of Bears safety Jonathan Owens scoring a touchdown on a blocked punt. Along with this message: “Remember him?” (The Packers having dropped Owens after last season cause they didn’t think he was any good. Thank you, Packers.) Wait, hold on, things got even better on Monday night. The New York Jets, led by quarterback Aaron Rodgers, got walloped by San Francisco. And Rodgers, worshipped by Packers fans from his years with the team, looked awful. I expected to hear all about it from Brian, Kevin, and Matt. But, you guessed it—their phones were silent. 🎙 [Listen to The Ben Joravsky Show]( 🎙 ◈ Sandwich by [Catherine Newman](. 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