Finally after a whole two days with no football we are back with an enormous early season game between two Super Bowl hopefuls in the Eagles and the Packers. Finally a good matchup in one of these games! Unfortunately, we won’t get to see either of these teams at full strength. The Eagles have several starters out as we will get into more later. The Packers have completely retooled under Matt LaFleur, dominating with their defense en route to a 3-0 start. Thursday night games tend to be a little sloppy, hopefully we get a good one in the works tonight.
Is it too early to fire up the narrative train for a *must-win* game? The Eagles had very high hopes coming in to 2019, their roster as loaded as ever, and obviously the Super Bowl winning infrastructure in place from Doug Pederson on down. But two tough, close losses to the Falcons and Lions, coupled with injuries to key cogs like Ronald Darby, Tim Jernigan, and DeSean Jackson, and the Eagles will be looking to bounce back in a big way tonight. A statement win in primetime at Lambeau would be exactly what the doctor ordered to get their season back on track and would quell any nervousness in Philly for perhaps a whole 69 seconds. I still think this is one of the best teams in the league, and one could argue that they are two dropped passes away from being 3-0 right now.
The Packers have a new identity under rookie head coach LaFleur, a pounding defense coupled with an offense that is finally designed to protect Aaron Rodgers (what a concept!) and give him plenty of time to throw. Although Green Bay’s peripherals aren’t great (-0.2 net YPP), they’ve had a decently tough schedule thus far, beating Chicago, Minnesota, and Denver. None of these wins were particularly dominant, but wins certainly aren’t easy to come by, and they’ll take them all the same. Rodgers in particular hasn’t been great in the early going, despite him complimenting his O-Line after the Denver game saying that he’s never been so clean after a game before. If he gets back to mid-2010s form, the Packers will be an absolute force to be reckoned with come January.
I dropped the ball in a major way on Monday night, blowing a couple weeks profit by about the 10-minute mark in the first quarter or so. Keenum had one of the worst performances I can remember since I was forced to watch Tyler Palko play for my Chiefs a few years back. The Bears defense came out with the juice, Titty Trubisky did what he had to do with a short field, and we paid the price. Thursday night games are usually slopfests which favor the defense. I’m expecting another grinder of a game, as I don’t think there is too much difference between these teams. Packers -4 seems a touch high, but with the short week typically favoring the home team, combined with the Eagles injuries, I understand it. Let’s make the Packers beat us in a blowout, rolling with the Birds once more.
Picks
- Eagles +10/under 53 6 pt tease -110
Season Record: 6-6 -0.75x
