The former Packers tight end is alive and kicking in Chicago.
Marcedes Lewis will play in his 278th career game on Sunday. The former Packers tight end is a bit player on the Bears this season; he’s only played 123 snaps on offense and another 30 on offense, and he’s only been targeted with two passes, catching one for a grand total of two yards.
But he’s out there putting in the work, week in and week out, just as he has been since George Bush was president. The second one, that is, though you’d be forgiven for thinking he’d been in the NFL since the elder Bush was in the White House.
I have a well-established soft spot for tight ends, and Lewis is one of the most maximally tight end tight ends there has ever been. You’ll never confuse him for some fleet-footed, field-stretching oversized wide receiver in the vein of his former Packers teammate Jimmy Graham (though Graham was neither fleet-footed nor field-stretching by the time he came to Green Bay), but Lewis will put his head down and block and will catch passes when you need him to, too. And with the exception of his ill-timed fumble in the 2021 playoffs (only the eighth of his lengthy career) he was reliable with the ball in his hands for the Packers.
Never a dynamic weapon, Lewis caught just 57 passes over 81 regular season games in Green Bay, producing 30 first downs and six touchdowns on those catches. He once rumbled for 36 yards on a catch, but his best play in Green Bay, regrettably, didn’t count; he failed to get a second foot down on what would have been the Packers’ catch of the year in 2021.
Now in year number 19, Lewis is poised to play his sixth career game against the Packers and third since he traded green and gold for navy and orange. But Lewis is in danger of a couple ignominious streaks.
First, if he fails to record a catch on Sunday, it’ll be his third consecutive game against the Packers where he hasn’t made an impact on the stat sheet. (If you’re wondering, his best game against the Packers was his two-catch, 44-yard performance in the 2016 opener). Though Lewis is, as we’ve established, not exactly a big receiving threat, it’s still noteworthy that he hasn’t yet been able to get a catch against his former team.
Second, if the Bears lose on Sunday, it’ll be Lewis’s fifth-straight loss to the Packers. He hasn’t beaten the Packers since 2008 when he was still a member of the Jacksonville Jaguars, and another loss on Sunday will mean he’ll have gone at least 16 years without a win over Green Bay, though he’ll get another crack at them in Week 18.
Is this newsworthy? Is a slow news day leading me to write about a guy who last played for the Packers in 2022? Who can say for sure. Maybe it’s just never a bad thing to think about Marcedes Lewis.