If there was any reason to shut down Aaron Rodgers for the season and perhaps take a look at Jordan Love a little, the Green Bay Packers certainly have it. After all, they are out of the playoff race, for all intents and purposes, and Rodgers has been playing with a thumb that is badly damaged, along with injured ribs.
But there’s too much fun to be had because the Chicago Bears are next on the schedule.
BetOnline customers who have followed Rodgers and the Packers through the years know that Chicago has been putty in his hands for the most part. And so that’s the story of these teams getting together at 1 PM Eastern time at Soldier Field.
As we were writing this, Chicago looked very much like it was going to be bringing back Justin Fields at quarterback. Fields has rushed for 834 yards on the season, which is an enormous total for a quarterback, plus he’s been sacked 40 times, so as you can imagine, he’s absorbed an awful lot of contact. He injured his left shoulder against the Atlanta Falcons a couple of weeks ago, and it was bad enough that he had to sit out last week’s game against the Jets as Trevor Siemian took over.
He’ll be back for this game, although we’re not sure what the plan is for him as far as running with the football is concerned.
Green Bay is 4–8, and Chicago is 3–9. Both of them are well behind the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC North, and there really isn’t much of a path to the playoffs for either one of them.
In the pro football odds that have been posted on this game by the folks at BetOnline, the Packers are laying points:
Green Bay Packers -4.5 (-107)
Chicago Bears +4.5 (-113)
Over 45 Points -108
Under 45 Points -112
One thing that would be alarming for the Packers is that they gave up 363 rushing yards to the Philadelphia Eagles last time out. That included 158 to Jalen Hurts, a quarterback, so as you can imagine, the presence of Fields is something that is potentially threatening for them. They have not been stingy up front, giving up five yards per carry, and Chicago has averaged 5.4 yards per rushing attempt on the season.
But a look at the statistics gives you an indication as to how much Rodgers likes playing against this opponent. His career record against them is 23–5, and he has thrown for 242 yards per game with 63 touchdowns and only ten interceptions. In these last couple of seasons, he completed 76% with 14 touchdowns and was not picked off. The Bears were kind of like a get-well pill for Green Bay in the second week of the season, as the Packers were trying to get past a truly horrible effort against Minnesota the week before.
Rogers only threw for 211 yards, and Chicago had 180 yards on the ground. But the Packers rushed for 203 yards in a 27–10 victory. Yes, they can bruise teams on the ground.
As it stands right now, Green Bay has won and covered the spread in each of the last seven meetings. And we can’t imagine that Fields is going to be hung out there to get banged around for very long. Do you really want to bet against Aaron Rodgers facing this team? We don’t and we hope the fans placing wagers on football betting sites also don’t. So even though Green Bay’s overall strength has been diminished, we will still lay the points with them.
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