NFL Betting Preview: Green Bay Packers at Chicago Bears

Added on Sep 27, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

The rivalry between the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears obviously has much to do with geography, and has been one of the biggest in the NFL since the 1920s. The teams have met 179 times on the gridiron–the most of any rivalry in pro football–with Chicago holding a 91-82-6 all time record. This year both teams enter the contest 2-0 which in the case of the home team is something of a surprise.

Green Bay Packers at Chicago Bears
September 27, 2010 5:35 PM Pacific

This matchup presents a classic example on why a football bettor needs to look beyond trends. Trends have their place and purpose, but can’t be relied on as the only justification for a play. In this matchup, the recent trends all point to the Green Bay Packers. No matter how you slice the pointspread trends of the two teams individually and in head to head matchups, it points to the Packers. Head to head, Green Bay is on a 25-11 SU/22-13 ATS run overall and in games played at Chicago are on a 14-4 SU/13-5 ATS run.

Obviously pointspread success of this magnitude is factored into the line, which results in ‘inflation’ but there’s more to like about Chicago in this matchup than as a garden variety contrarian position. Most significantly, the Bears have won with offense so far in 2010 under the direction of mad genius Mike Martz. Since he didn’t have the personnel to reprise the St. Louis Rams ‘Greatest Show on Turf’ era he’s done a remix with the Bears’ impressive running back depth. The result is a team that can run the ball and catch passes out of the backfield, which opens up opportunities downfield. The media is focused on the fact that the Bears’ defense isn’t as good as it used to be and has largely missed the drastic improvement in the offense.

More specific to this matchup, Mike Martz scheming against the Green Bay defense is an epic mismatch. The Packers’ defense was a concern heading into this season and while they may look OK statistically at this point much of that was due to scheduling–particularly the fact that game 2 was against a Buffalo Bills’ team that just released their starting quarterback. No doubt Martz has paid close attention to the second half of the Packers’ opening game against Philadelphia when Michael Vick ran over, under, around and through the Green Bay defense. In that game they knew where the rush was coming from and couldn’t stop it. In this game, they’ll be struggling to stop a multifaceted rushing attack that can catch passes from the backfield *and* a significantly more competent downfield passer in Jay Cutler.

Aaron Rodgers is still one of the best quarterbacks in pro football and the Packers will put points on the board. We just think that the Bears will put up more and win this game outright in a high scoring affair that goes Over the posted total.

Bet Chicago Bears +3 over Green Bay Packers
Bet Chicago/Green Bay Over 46