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As one of the greatest rivalries in sports, the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers have faced off as NFC North rivals more than 200 times dating back to 1921, with the latter holding a slight all-time lead in terms of won-loss record. Moreover, from Gale Sayers and Walter Payton to Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung, both franchises have a long tradition of standout running backs; in recent memory, two Pro Bowl running backs who donned the respective Bears and Packers uniforms during the 21st century were Matt Forte and Ahman Green – each was a consistent workhorse back in his prime with similar all-around versatility both running and catching the ball, thus making for an interesting comparison:
Who was better – Matt Forte or Ahman Green?
The Beginning
After starring athletically in high school, Forte and Green each stayed in-state for college and were likewise football stars at the collegiate level; while both were eventually early to mid-round draft picks, they got off to very different starts in the NFL.
Born and raised in Louisiana, Forte starred in high school in both football and track and field, eventually going on to attend in-state Tulane University to continue his football career. There, he split carries in his first two seasons (Conference USA All-Freshman team as a freshman and All-Conference USA as a sophomore) before taking over as the Green Wave’s lead running back in his junior year and would have a standout senior year with school records of 2,127 rushing yards and 23 rushing touchdowns, thus earning All-Conference USA honors, a Third Team All-American selection, and semifinalist nods for both the Doak Walker and Maxwell Awards. After winning Senior Bowl MVP honors, Forte was drafted 44th overall in the second round of the 2008 NFL Draft by the Bears and with the release of Cedric Benson, immediately became the team’s starting running back as a rookie; he went on to have a stellar rookie season, rushing for franchise rookie records of 1,238 yards and 8 touchdowns while adding 63 receptions for 477 yards and 4 touchdowns.
Similarly, Green grew up in Omaha, Nebraska and likewise excelled in both football and track and field – on the gridiron, he parlayed USA Today High School All-American and Nebraska Player of the Year honors in football as a high school senior into a scholarship for in-state powerhouse University of Nebraska. During three seasons with the Cornhuskers, he was an immediate star despite sharing the backfield with Lawrence Phillips and Tommie Frazier – as a freshman, Green set a school freshman rushing record and earned First Team All-Big Eight and Freshman of the Year honors as part of the Cornhuskers’ national title team. In his junior year, he rushed for 1,877 and 22 touchdowns to earn First Team All-Big 12 and Second Team All-American honors and was a finalist for the Doak Walker Award; to top things off, he rushed for an Orange Bowl record 206 yards in Nebraska’s 42-17 win over Tennessee to cap off another national title season. Declaring early after his junior campaign as the second-leading rusher in school history, Green was selected 76th overall in the third round of the 1998 NFL Draft by the Seattle Seahawks; however, due to the presence of established veteran running back Ricky Watters, Green was quiet in his first two NFL seasons with fewer than 500 total rushing yards and only a single touchdown.
Career Comparison
In their respective primes with Chicago and Green Bay, Forte and Green were consistent 1,000-yard backs year in and year out, each setting either franchise or league records at the peak of their powers.
Building on his standout rookie campaign, Forte was a consistently productive running back for the Bears both on the ground and through the air for nearly a decade (1,000+ yards from scrimmage in all eight seasons with the team). After declining slightly in 2009 (929 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns, 57 catches for 471 yards), he posted another 1,000-yard rushing season in 2010: 1,069 rushing yards and 6 touchdowns plus 51 receptions for 547 yards and 3 touchdowns. In 2011, despite being limited by injury to 12 games, he earned his first Pro Bowl selection on the strength of 997 rushing yards (including a career-best 205-yard game vs. the Carolina Panthers) and 3 touchdowns, plus 52 catches for 490 yards and a touchdown. Like clockwork, Forte followed up with yet another 1,000-yard season (1,094 rushing yards), though dipped to a career-low of “only” 44 receptions for 340 yards.
At an age when many running backs are beginning to decline, Forte had a career-best year in 2013 at age 28 to garner his second and final Pro Bowl selection: a career-high 1,339 rushing yards and 9 touchdowns, plus 74 catches for 594 yards and 3 touchdowns. As an encore, he produced a third consecutive 1,000-yard season with 1,038 rushing yards and 6 touchdowns, joining Payton and Neal Anderson as the only Bears players to accomplish the feat; moreover, he added a career-high 102 receptions for 808 yards and 4 touchdowns, thus breaking the single-season receptions record by a running back (101 by Larry Centers in 1995; since eclipsed by Christian McCaffrey in back-to-back seasons in 2018 and 2019). Following a solid, but unspectacular 2015 season, Forte became a free agent and joined the New York Jets, where he proceeded to post 813 rushing yards and 7 touchdowns with 30 catches for 263 yards and a touchdown for his final season of 1,000+ scrimmage yards. Relegated to a backup role in 2017, the 32-year-old Forte had a career-worst 381 rushing yards with New York (and his only year below 1,000 total yards) before signing a one-day contract to retire with the Bears.
Meanwhile, after toiling as a backup in Seattle for a couple of seasons, Green was traded to the Packers in 2000 and finally got a chance to start while sharing the backfield with legendary quarterback Brett Favre; in his first season with Green Bay, he notched the first of five straight 1,000-yard seasons (and 6x overall) with 1,175 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns plus a career-high 73 receptions for 559 yards and 3 touchdowns. In turn, this was followed by four straight Pro Bowl seasons from 2001 to 2004:
- 2001: 1,387 rushing yards and 9 touchdowns along with 62 catches for 594 yards and 2 touchdowns
- 2002: 1,240 rushing yards and 7 touchdowns along with 57 catches for 393 yards and 2 touchdowns
- 2003: career-best year with a franchise-record 1,883 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns (including a career-long 98-yard touchdown run), plus 50 catches for 367 yard and a career-high 5 receiving touchdowns; in the process, Green became the only player in NFL history to rush for 1,850 yards with a 5.0 yards per attempt average, score 20 touchdowns, and catch 50 passes in a season
- 2004: 1,163 rushing yards and 7 touchdowns along with 40 catches for 275 yards and a touchdown
In 2005, Green was limited by injuries to only five games played, but bounced back in 2006 with a final 1,000-yard rushing season (1,059 rushing yards and 5 touchdowns plus 46 catches for 373 yards and a touchdown). A free agent at season’s end, he signed with the Houston Texans and was expected to be the team’s bellcow back – however, over two seasons and a total of 14 games played, he only managed 554 rushing yards and was subsequently released ahead of the 2009 season. For the 2009 season, Green re-signed with the Packers in a reserve role, though played sparingly in eight games, rushing for a total of 160 yards; nevertheless, he did surpass the aforementioned Jim Taylor as the leading rusher in Green Bay history. While he did not play again in the NFL, Green briefly played for the Omaha Nighthawks of the United Football League and the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League before officially retiring in 2011.
On the whole, despite Green’s dozen NFL seasons to Forte’s decade in the league, the two backs essentially played the same number of career games – over this period, Forte racked up more rushing yards (though on more attempts with a lower yards per attempt average), receptions, and receiving yards, with the duo separated by just one total touchdown (more rushing touchdowns for Green, more receiving scores for Forte). On one hand, Green achieved more 1,000-yard rushing seasons (6x to 5x) with more Pro Bowl selections (4 to 2), but both scored double-digit touchdowns in a season 3x and Forte has the better numbers on a per-game basis as well: 99 total yards (67 rushing yards, 3.8 receptions for 32 receiving yards) and 0.51 touchdowns per game in 146 regular season games vs. 82 total yards (62 rushing yards, 2.6 receptions for 20 yards) and 0.50 touchdowns per game across 148 regular season games for Green. With both players accumulating between 9,000 and 10,000 career rushing yards, Forte and Green are borderline Hall of Fame candidates.
Regular Season Statistics
| Matt Forte | Player | Ahman Green |
| 10 (2008-2017) | Seasons | 12 (1998-2009) |
| 146 | Games Played | 148 |
| 2,356 | Rushing Attempts | 2,056 |
| 9,796 | Rushing Yards | 9,205 |
| 4.2 | Yards Per Attempt | 4.5 |
| 54 | Rushing Touchdowns | 60 |
| 554 | Receptions | 378 |
| 4,672 | Receiving Yards | 2,883 |
| 21 | Receiving Touchdowns | 14 |
| 2x | Pro Bowls | 4x |
| – | All-Pro | – |
| – | MVP | – |
| – | Super Bowls | – |
| – | Other Awards | – |
| – | Hall of Fame Induction | – |
Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com
Despite their regular season productivity, neither Forte nor Green came close to guiding their teams to a Super Bowl title, though the latter was a much more frequent postseason participant.
During his decade-long NFL career, Forte only made the postseason once – led by quarterback Jay Cutler, Chicago beat the Seahawks 35-24 in the Divisional Round before falling to the rival Packers in the NFC Championship Game by a 21-14 score; Forte was his usual all-around productive self in both games, totaling 134 total yards (80 rushing yards and 3 catches for 54 yards) vs. Seattle and another 160 yards against Green Bay (70 rushing yards and 10 receptions for 90 yards).
Green’s four Pro Bowl seasons from 2001 to 2004 also coincided with the bulk of his career playoff appearances (six total, 5x with Green Bay and 1x with Seattle). Though the majority of these postseason trips resulted in “one-and-done”, he did helped guide the Packers to Wildcard wins in both 2001 and 2003 before falling in the Divisional Round each time – notably, in a 20-17 Divisional Round loss to Donovan McNabb and the Philadelphia Eagles in 2003, Green set a personal playoff best with 156 rushing yards on 25 attempts, along with 3 receptions for 16 yards.
Playoff Statistics
| Matt Forte | Player | Ahman Green |
| 2 | Games Played | 8 |
| 42 | Rushing Attempts | 119 |
| 150 | Rushing Yards | 521 |
| 36 | Yards Per Attempt | 4.4 |
| – | Rushing Touchdowns | 3 |
| 13 | Receptions | 21 |
| 144 | Receiving Yards | 146 |
| – | Receiving Touchdowns | – |
Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com
Every athlete goes through a natural career lifecycle, from starting off as a rookie to reaching peak years of performance and finally, declining into the inevitable retirement due to a combination of age and/or injury; whereas Forte was thrust into a starting role right from the get-go and was productive through his Bears days, Green needed a change of scenery before becoming a true workhorse back. For Hall of Fame caliber players across sports, I like to look at a concept I call a “decade of dominance.” The thinking behind this is that for most Hall of Fame type careers, there are roughly 10 great seasons that define an athlete (this idea is embodied in a sense by the NFL’s All-Decade teams), though due to injury or other factors, they might not be 10 consecutive years. However, given the shorter careers most running backs have due to the physical toll of the position (very few running backs are effective after age 30), I have modified it in this comparison to a “(half)-decade of dominance”.
(Half)-Decade of Dominance
| Matt Forte | Player | Ahman Green |
| 2008, 2010, 2012-2014 | (Half)-Decade of Dominance | 2000-2004 |
| 79 | Games Played | 77 |
| 1,356 | Rushing Attempts | 1,467 |
| 5,778 | Rushing Yards | 6,848 |
| 4.3 | Yards Per Attempt | 4.7 |
| 34 | Rushing Touchdowns | 48 |
| 334 | Receptions | 282 |
| 2,766 | Receiving Yards | 2,188 |
| 15 | Receiving Touchdowns | 13 |
Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com
Though Forte’s overall career numbers are better, Green was actually the better back across each player’s best half-decade – over 1,000 more rushing yards,more touchdowns, and a smaller gap in terms of receiving production.
My Thoughts
In the long and storied histories of the Bears and Packers franchises, Matt Forte and Ahman Green are two of the best running backs their respective teams have ever seen – more specifically, I would say Forte is the best Chicago running back since Walter Payton and Green is the best Green Bay running back since the Lombardi era in the 1960s. Though their careers are separated by a decade and only overlap by one season, their career numbers and accomplishments are quite similar; on one hand, I think Green had the higher peak and was better for a five-year period in his prime with the Packers, but overall, I would say Forte was the more consistently excellent player and had a better overall career. In fact, he is arguably one of the most underrated running backs ever – only six backs have at least 9,000 career rushing yards and 4,500 career receiving yards: Payton, Marshall Faulk, LaDainian Tomlinson, Marcus Allen, Tiki Barber, and Forte (with the first four all being Hall of Famers). As to the Hall of Fame question, however, ultimately, I think Forte and Green fall just short – each was very good (i.e. “Hall of Very Good” and individual team Hall of Fame-worthy), but other than Green’s 2003 season, neither was ever considered an All-Pro back nor reached certain career milestones that almost guarantee enshrinement, e.g. 12,000 career rushing yards; an interesting comparable for Green is Watters (the player he backed up in Seattle), who actually has better career numbers than Green, but likewise is still on the outside looking in for Canton.
Thus, after weighing their careers against each other in terms of statistics, achievements, and impact, the winner of this faceoff is:
Matt Forte
As always, vote for your choice and leave your thoughts and comments below.
Further Reading
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