NEWSLETTER
Rivalry week!
Jaquan Brisker hates Green Bay. So does Justin Jones. I’m sure many of you can (have) (and will) echo those sentiments.
I don’t need to write a lengthy, wordy intro to let you know how big this game is for the Bears. If you know, you know. And if you don’t, then you will after you read this preview.
Game Info
Chicago Bears (2022 record: 3-14) vs Green Bay Packers (2022: 8-9)
FOX -TV (Kevin Burkhardt, Greg Olsen, Erin Andrews)
ESPN 1000 AM (Jeff Joniak, Tom Thayer)
Sports USA Radio (Larry Kahn, James White)
Kickoff Time: 3:25 p.m. CT
Site: Soldier Field; Chicago
Referee: Craig Wrolstad
Odds: Bears -1, O/U 42 (via BetMGM)
I’ve Got $5 On It
Inspired by the hit 90s song by Luniz, here’s Luis’ Week 1 play via Bet MGM
Same Game Parlay: Justin Fields anytime TD + Khalil Herbert anytime TD (+700) — Patrick put a bug in my ear for this one when we did the BN Football Show earlier on Friday by suggesting a D.J. Moore + Justin Fields anytime TD parlay. But I didn’t want to totally jack his style, so I went a different route. Because I like the payout of a Fields-Herbert touchdown parlay more.
When it comes to Fields, he scored 8 rushing touchdowns last year (two of which came against the Packers). Did you think I wasn’t going to include this highlight?
It should’ve been three rushing scores for Fields against the Packers last year, but QB1 got jobbed out of one. As for Khalil Herbert, I’m going here because David Montgomery scored 2 touchdowns in the RB1 role last year against Green Bay while Herbert was unavailable due to injury. And for what it’s worth, Herbert scored a touchdown in his first-ever game against the Packers. How about history repeats itself in Week 1?
A $5 wager pays out $40 if both Khalil Herbert and Justin Fields score a touchdown. Just to be clear, for Fields, it has to be a rushing or receiving touchdown. Passing touchdowns don’t count for “scoring a TD” in the eyes of the sports book. Don’t mind me. I’m just passing along that info to you. And, as always, please wager responsibly.
Starting QBs and Projected Game Stats
Bears: Justin Fields: 18/28, 200 pass yards, 1 TD, 1 INT; 9 carries, 60 rush yards
Packers: Jordan Love: 21/33, 243 pass yards, 1 TD, 1 INT; 3 carries, 12 rushing yards
Bears Projected Starters
Offense
Defense
Specialists
Packers Projected Starters
Offense
Defense
Specialists
Three Bears
Justin Fields is set to embark on the biggest year of his career. If it isn’t a make-or-break year, it is pretty darn close. By year’s end, the Bears need to be in a place where they know what they should do regarding picking up the fifth-year option on Fields’ rookie deal. If Fields plays well and shows he is a QB1 worth building around, then that decision will be an easy one. But if Fields doesn’t play well enough to earn that option being picked up, then it’ll open up a whole can of worms for this franchise. Because if Fields isn’t the guy, then I don’t think the rest of this Bears roster is good enough to be “good enough” if you catch my drift.
I don’t want to oversimplify it, but I will. What matters most this season is what happens with Justin Fields. How he plays this year will tell us everything we need to know about what path the Bears need to take in the future. Let me be clear. This is about how Fields plays this year. Not just in this game. Sunday’s Bears-Packers game is just one piece of a larger puzzle. And I can’t wait to start putting it together.
D.J. Moore is about to get his first taste of my favorite NFL rivalry. And my gut says he’ll be up for the challenge. Moore has played the Packers twice in his career — and both times were relatively recent. In 2019, Moore put up a 9-catch, 120-yard performance against the Packers at Lambeau Field. A year later, he strung together a 6-catch, 131-yard game in Green Bay. The Panthers lost both of those games by identical 24-16 scores, but it’s not like Moore was the culprit.
No matter the outcome of Sunday’s game, I think we’ll come away from it saying to ourselves: “Oh, yeah! That’s why they traded for D.J. Moore.”
Yannick Ngakoue joins Moore (and a host of others) in making their Bears debut against the Packers. And whenever he gets his first sack in this game, it’ll also mark his first-ever sack against the Packers. Ngakoue has played 95 snaps over two games against Green Bay and has 0 sacks, 0 tackles-for-loss, and just 2 quarterback hits in those contests. I think it’s time to get the zeroes out of those columns. What better time than Week 1?
It’ll be nice to have a premium pass-rusher to keep our eyes on when Chicago’s defense is on the field. Ngakoue is coming off a 2022 season in which he tallied 9.5 sacks, 16 quarterback hits, and 8-tackles-for-loss. And I expect a stat line that looks something like that at the end of the year.
