NFC North Week One Look Ahead
The Lions host the Vikings in their opener
Are you ready for some football? You better get ready. It is game week in the NFL. No more meaningless preseason games, it is for real now. Betting lines on these games are not out yet, but let’s take a look at what we expect in the NFC North this week:
Cincinnati Bengals at Chicago Bears– The Bengals have made the playoffs the last two seasons in the AFC. They should again this season. Andy Dalton is becoming a very good NFL quarterback and A. J. Greene is a stud at wide receiver. The Bears first string offense looked very good in the preseason. Jay Cutler was on fire.
This game is going to be a very good one. The Bengals should be a slight favorite but we like the Bears at home. With Matt Forte running the football and Cutler throwing it, the Bears should win 30-24.
Minnesota Vikings at Detroit Lions– This one should be a very good offensive show with Adrian Peterson running for the Vikes and Reggie Bush running and catching for the Lions. Detroit tanked last season but they still have a lot of talent with the likes of Bush, Calvin Johnson at wide receiver and Matthew Stafford at quarterback. At some point Stafford gets hurt. But he will be healthy this week so we like the Lions in a shootout, 38-31.
Green Bay Packers at San Francisco 49ers– Didn’t these two met in week one last year too? In that one, the visiting Niners went to Green Bay and upset the Pack. Can Green Bay return the favor over the Niners this time? San Francisco will be favored in this game. We like Aaron Rodgers and green Bay with the points in this one. This will be the game of the week in the NFL. Green Bay wins 27-24.
Do not be surprised if all three of these games go the opposite way. After all, it is week one so all we have to go on is last year and the preseason. But in reality, everyone has a clean slate so we do not really know what will happen this year. Typically in opening weeks though, teams that were good a year ago have at least a mental edge over teams that were not. When you look back at week one results, games that you were not surprised about at the time sometimes look like upsets later and vice versa. Remember last year when the Washington Redskins beat the New Orleans Saints and the Dallas Cowboys beat the New York Giants. Those looked like upsets at the time. Not so much later.
However, we also had the Arizona Cardinals over the Seattle Seahawks, the New York Jets scoring 48 points in a win over the Buffalo Bills and the Bears beating the Indianapolis Colts by 20 points. The final standings made those results look a bit surprising even though at the time they were no big surprise. That is how week one goes, so wager with a bit of caution.
