NFC Championship Game Prediction

The overwhelming favorites in this game are the Green Bay Packers. This is the case despite the Packers having to go on the road to the Chicago Bears home field. The Packers are a 3.5-point favorite in Chicago, which for those of you who don’t know, is a slap in the face to a home team, especially a playoff home team. So will the Packers deliver on what appears to be a win everybody expects them to get?

Here is the official NFC Championship Game Prediction from TheSportsWatchers.

Green Bay Packers at Chicago Bears (+3.5)

The Green Bay Packers are very good on offense and very good on defense. By yardage, the Packers were a Top 10 team on both sides of the ball, and they would have been even better on offense had Aaron Rodgers not missed significant time this season, due to injury.

The Bears, on the other hand, are a very good defense, and they proved it by finishing 9th in the league in that category. Better yet, the Bears allowed the 4th fewest points this past season. Still, as good as the Bears were on defense, the injury-riddled Packers were even better, allowing fewer yards and points this past NFL season.

And then there’s the offensive side of the ball. Don’t get us wrong; the Bears had their moments this season. Jay Cutler put up big offensive games against the Philadelphia Eagles, Minnesota Vikings and the Dallas Cowboys. But at the end of the day, they were inconsistent at best. The Bears finished 30th in the NFL offensive yardage, worst than both the Cleveland Browns and the Buffalo Bills. And Jay Cutler, who is getting all of this praise for having played “so well” this season, only finished the year with an 86.3 quarterback rating and he averaged over 1 interception per game this season. That’s not exactly elite status, and it definitely isn’t Aaron Rodgers status.

Speaking of Mr. Rodgers, is this guy good or what? To this point he has outplayed Michael Vick and Matt Ryan, two of the NFC’s best quarterbacks all season long. Now he gets Jay Cutler, who wasn’t exactly in the running for NFC MVP of the Year, and no one expects Rodgers to lose this battle.

Sorry to say it, Bears fans, but making a prediction for this game comes down to one thing: quarterback play. The Packers have an elite quarterback, perhaps the best quarterback of the four remaining teams, and he’s got a better receiving core and offensive system around him. The Bears are walking into this game hoping Cutler doesn’t revert back to his old self and with a receiving core that is led by some guy named Johnny Knox, who we mistakenly picked to win be top flight fantasy football option two years ago.

So let’s keep this simple. Aaron Rodgers will play better against the Bears Top 10 defense than Cutler will play against the Packers Top 5 defense. Need I say more?

Packers win, 27-17

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