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One of the oldest rivalries in football comes to Thursday Night Football tonight as the Green Bay Packers face the Chicago Bears. in Green Bay. Both of these teams are coming off a win on Sunday, but despite that they are on very different paths this season. The Packers are expected to once again make the playoffs while the Bears are not going to. Can the Bears surprise us tonight?
The way they played against the Steelers on Sunday is certainly enticing. They held the Steelers with Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown to under 300 total yards while forcing two turnovers. They absolutely dominated the running game as they put up a whopping 220 yards on the ground. That is definitely something to get excited about, right? Well, not exactly. They had two turnovers in that game which was a big improvement on the four they gave up in week two. This might not be a good football team.
Green Bay is Green Bay which is to say that they have Aaron Rodgers and some people he can throw to. The running game leaves something to be desired, the coaching will drive you crazy and the defense just isn’t as good as it needs to be most of the time. That said, the Packers are 32-18 against the spread versus Chicago since 1992 and most of those teams were a lot better than this one. There’s a reason the spread on this game is -7. The Packers have Aaron Rodgers, the Bears do not.
NFL Betting Tips:
This is a pretty interesting match-up though. The Bears have been great against the run and great running the ball, the Packers have been bad against the run and bad running the ball. The Packers have forced turnovers, the Bears have six turnovers in their last two games. There are interesting yin and yang numbers like that we can play with to make this game seem interesting, but I just don’t believe it is.
The Packers -7 should cover this spread tonight. The times the Bears looked competent, when they played on the road they got blown out by 21 points. This sounds like one of those games to me. While the running game was fun last week, I don’t think that will repeat itself when they start to fall behind. The Packers passing game is too good and they will need to try to keep up. They won’t be able to.
College Football Betting Tips:
Once that game starts getting out of a hand, it’s a good idea to flip over to tonight’s Texas at Iowa State game because it’s going to be a good one. With a total set at 66.5 points, there will be touchdowns and lots of them.
The majority of those touchdowns should come from the Iowa State +4 offense. They’ve put up 41 or more points in each game this season and I don’t expect them to stop now. This Texas team has been turnover prone early with six in the first three games, including four last week. If they turn the ball over against this offense? It’s going to be big, big trouble. Give me that home dog and all the touchdowns that come with it.