CHICAGO — Ben Johnson’s “F−−− the Packers” postgame declaration after the Chicago Bears’ wild-card win over Green Bay was fiercely debated on the Monday morning hot take circuit.

Was Johnson a meatball head coach lacking in sportsmanship, or just an honest guy expressing his opinion about a rival he doesn’t like?

The answer, of course, depended on your feelings about the Bears, the NFL’s new “it” team after their wild playoff win over Green Bay.

On a busy Monday morning at Halas Hall, as the Bears prepared for Sunday’s divisional-round game against the Los Angeles Rams, Johnson addressed the viral video and his phony postgame handshake with Packers coach Matt LaFleur.

“Like I said before, there’s a rivalry that exists between these two teams, something that I fully recognize and I’m a part of,” Johnson told reporters. “And, yeah, I just, I don’t like that team. So George and I have talked, and we’re on the same page.”

That would be Bears Chairman George McCaskey, who no doubt approved of the message Johnson was delivering after years of watching coaches he hired lose to those Packers. McCaskey is definitely a meatball owner, though I don’t recall him saying anything derogatory about Green Bay out loud, which would be very un-owner-like and considered undignified by his fellow billionaires.

But he’s apparently OK with Johnson saying it, and most Bears fans applauded the coach for saying what they all think, and what many have said on numerous occasions. If you’ve ever walked through the tunnel from Soldier Field to the Roosevelt L station after games, you know the “Packers suck” chant is heard after every Bears win, no matter the opponent.

The only way Johnson could ingratiate himself more with Bears fans would be to pull a Diego Pavia and make a video of himself urinating on Lambeau Field.

Instead, Johnson simply uttered the inflammatory words to his players in the celebratory clubhouse, knowing it would become a “Ben thing.” Johnson’s postgame speeches after wins are now considered “must-see” video, just as Bears fans always had to watch “The Mike Ditka Show” on Channel 2 before games to see what Da Coach had to say about his upcoming opponent.

But even Ditka never said “F−−− the Packers” on video. He once said the Bears players of the 1960s called them the “Red Bay Packers” because “every time we said Green Bay, our coaches choked.” That tradition was revived in the 2010s. The Packers went 28-4 against the Bears from 2009 until the meaningless final game of last season.

Choking was a thematic motif for the Bears until Johnson met LaFleur, so a little trash talking after Saturday’s miraculous comeback was probably inevitable, even if Johnson decided to go nuclear.

It wasn’t that long ago that whatever a coach told his players after a game was considered off the record. Back in 2017, after a Pittsburgh Steelers playoff win over Kansas City, Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown got into hot water for putting coach Mike Tomlin’s postgame speech on Facebook Live. Tomlin was telling his players to get ready for the New England Patriots, who had played a day earlier.

“We just spotted these a−−holes a day and a half,” Tomlin said. “They played yesterday. Our game got moved to tonight. We’re going to touch down at 4 o’clock in the f−−−ing morning. So be it. We’ll be ready for their ass. But you ain’t got to tell them we’re coming.”

Tomlin called Brown’s undercover video “foolish,” “selfish” and “inconsiderate,” while adding he needed to clean up his language. New England quarterback Tom Brady sniffed that such an incident would never happen under Patriots coach Bill Belichick.

“When we’re inside of our stadium or inside of our walls there has to be a degree of privacy,” Brady told a Boston radio station at the time. “What’s done in the locker room should stay in the locker room.”

Oh, what a different world it was back in ’17. We’ve come a long way, baby.

Those days are over, and now several coaches enjoy mugging for the team’s videographers, knowing whatever they say will quickly be posted on the team’s social media accounts for extended viral viewing pleasure. Johnson is one of those coaches, though his hatred of the Packers apparently was not acting.

The Bears dutifully posted the speech in a tweet after the game that read “Not. Done. Yet.” They bleeped out the profanity, but it was obvious what he said: “F−−− the Packers. F−−− them. I f−−−ing hate those guys.” The players went wild, and President and CEO Kevin Warren and general manager Ryan Poles were seen smiling and applauding in the background.

This is all good stuff for the media and fans, and added another chapter to one of the sport’s greatest rivalries.

We do love to hate our rivals. Former Cubs manager Dusty Baker was still beloved in Chicago in 2003 when he was caught on WGN-Ch. 9 cameras yelling “F−−− you” to St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa during a heated game during the pennant race at Wrigley Field. Watching a Cubs manager fire back at the sanctimonious Cardinals leader was considered a breath of fresh air at a time when the Cubs were trying to change their culture. It worked for a while, and when it didn’t, Baker was gone.

Rivalries bring out the best and worst in our sports leaders, and sometimes it means giving up the pretense of being a “good sport.” Sure, Johnson could’ve congratulated the Packers on a well-fought game, like coaches always do after big games. He could’ve shook his hand for more than a nanosecond and said a few words.

But his obvious animosity toward LaFleur prevented him from doing so. Or maybe LaFleur deserved it for being a pretentious human being. Who knows?

Still, it was funny to hear Cubs fans reacting so positively to Johnson’s comments after getting upset over the Milwaukee Brewers posing with an “L” flag after beating the Cubs in the division series last October.

If the Brewers’ players lacked class by trolling the Cubs, as many fans suggested, why was Johnson’s “F−−− the Packers” speech OK?

Like any made-in-America controversy, it all depends on what side of the fence you’re on. Bulls fans hated Dennis Rodman when he played for the “Bad Boys” in Detroit, but revered him when his antics helped the Bulls win three more titles. Alex Bregman was booed everywhere but Houston when he was revealed to be part of the cheating Astros team that won the 2017 World Series, but now he’s the new savior of the Cubs.

That’s the way the sports world turns, and like the rest of the world, it’s turning so fast now it’s hard to keep up with what’s considered acceptable behavior.

Either way, Johnson clearly hit a nerve, and he’ll be a villain in Green Bay forevermore. And if he wins a Super Bowl in Chicago, they may erect a statue of him giving the Packers the finger.

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