An opening observation: Boy, there's a lot of "p's" in the title to this post!
OK, now that that's out of the way ...
A reminder that the Packers beat the Lions 31-24 last week in Detroit to lock up the NFC North Division title for the second year in a row and the seventh time in the last 10 years. Yes, the Packers are the Kings of the North. 'Nuff said.
Except for this: the Packers also now hold the number 1 seed in the NFC playoff hunt by virtue of their tiebreaker win over the New Orleans Saints. If the Pack wins out, they have the lone first-round bye for the playoffs and then the road to the Super Bowl for the NFC runs through Green Bay. In January. Yeah, that's right.
And even if the Packers stumble in one of their three remaining regular season games — Carolina and Tennessee at Lambeau and then Da Bearz in Chicago for the season finale — they can still retain that number 1 seeding. Too complicated in terms of the scenarios to go into here right now. Plus, you can look it up. Lots of football left.
We should see Packers RB Aaron Jones heading to the end zone a lot
in tonight's game at Lambeau Field vs. the Carolina Panthers.
(Photo from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
The Preview
The 10-3 Green Bay Packers host the 4-9 Carolina Panthers tonight at Lambeau Field. The Panthers will be without arguably their best offensive player in RB Christian McCaffrey. QB Teddy Bridgewater has been rather mediocre and there hasn't been many receiving weapons for him that would pose a threat to the Packers defensive backs even if he was performing better. Still, the Packers defense needs to put pressure on Bridgewater because if they do they should be able to generate an interception or two tonight.
On the offensive side of things, the Packers continue to put up points and they should be able to do so once again tonight against a young set of Carolina d-backs. Unless the Packers defense fails to show up, the Panthers offense won't be able to keep up with the Pack.
The Prediction
The oddsmakers favor the Pack by 8-1/2 points at the time of this writing. We think the Packers will cover that spread ... if we were betting types (which we are not).
While the Panthers may be able to keep it close for a time, we expect QB Aaron Rodgers and his crew of receiving and rushing weapons to have a good evening. We're calling it Packers 38- Panthers 24.
Go Pack Go!!!
