For over 20 years we've had Packers Sunday at my house.

In all that time the houses have changed, the group has added people, through birth, marriage and other things, we've lost a few to other endeavors, but the core group remains today. We've had everything from Jump Back Hold The Dog Chili to broccoli bake and spinach lasagna. There's beer, wine, soda, milk and ice water. Snacks aplenty with the emphasis on cheese, salami and crackers.

We've got this thing we do whenever the Packers score a touchdown. It's called "The Hook." Everyone jumps up and shouts "hook me" and with their first two fingers give the hook to everybody else in the room. Nowadays if a member happens to be out of town they send a text message saying "hook me." Last Sunday we got hooks from Florida and Idaho.

In the past two decades I have never seen such exuberant hooking and shouting and dancing as I saw when Tramon Williams intercepted that pass and returned it 70 yards for a touchdown at the end of the first half in the Packers' dismantling of the Falcons.

It wasn't long after that play that people began to think about the Chicago Bears. Nobody talked about it until near the end of the game, but everybody was thinking about the Bears.

This is the perfect storm for the National Football League.

The oldest rivalry in the league being staged for a berth in the Super Bowl. In Chicago with the possibility of lousy weather. Two teams who split during the regular season.

There will be an avalanche of stories this week about the two teams, the history, which fans will act more stupidly, which fans will have the most outlandish costumes. I bet at least one local TV station will anchor its newscast from Chicago.

If you're a football fan all this kind of crap makes you nauseous. What matters is the game and we're going to hold our breath waiting for it to start.

For those of us here in the frozen tundra, we really have only one thing to worry about.

Don't be overconfident.

There has been a feeling all year that the Bears were doing it with smoke and mirrors, that they really weren't a legitimate 11-5 football team. They had Devin Hester and a renewed Brian Urlacher but not much else to catch your attention. Except they seemed to have luck. It started in the first game of the season when a referee made a bad call and snatched victory from the Detroit Lions and gave it to the Bears.

There is one thing that you have to remember about luck, though. It can sometimes help unusual things happen in the world of sports.

If you watched the Bears against the Seahawks Sunday you saw a team that is a pretty good football team, especially when they've got momentum on their side. Plus their offensive line, coached by Mike Tice, seems to have evolved into an effective unit, giving time to Jay Cutler and running room to Matt Forte.

The Packers now seem almost unbeatable. Everything is clicking and Mike McCarthy is making a strong case for Coach of the Year honors. The temptation, and a strong one it is, is to say the Packers are a much better team than the Bears and are all but certain to win the game.

But the fields of sport are littered with the bodies of heavy favorites who went into a game thinking they should win. I would not be surprise if the Bears won. I'd be disappointed, but it wouldn't surprise me.

What we need is a strong sense of realism and a little caution. Then the biggest Packer Sunday in years should end up on a happy note.

Hook me.