I received an email from Craig over at The Frozen Tundra about helping out with his Packers/Bears coverage this week. He sent me three questions to give a quick and dirty answer to. I originally just asked him to send me his thoughts on why the Pack will win, but after reading it on his site, I liked the format and I liked having both sides by both teams, so I am posting the entire post, with both of our answers.
If you have the time, head over to his site and drop a comment.
Why the Bears will win
WCG: You can point to any number of reasons for the Bears success, but in the end it all comes down to the play of their line on both sides of the ball The worst move the Packers have done in a long time is let their offensive linemen go this off season. They are vunerable up front. The Bears are coming off of performances of 8 and 6 sacks against the Panthers and Tampa Bay respectively. All 14 of those sacks have come from the front four, so the Bears speedy linebackers are free to drop into coverage. This is the key to the Bears D.
On the other side, KGB is a quality pass rusher, but he can't do it on his own. The Bears offensive line is playing like mad men recently. They held arguably the best pass rushing duo over in Carolina to 0 sacks. They are giving Orton time to throw and opening up gaping holes for Jones and Peterson to run through.
Craig: The Bears have the best defense in the NFL without a doubt right now. The Packers offense is really not that consistent right now and has been downright abyssmal in the 2nd half this whole season. The Bears DB's thrive off of QB's forcing the issue and Favre is currently doing that in overdrive. The Bears offense certainly are not world beaters, but they have a solid running game and Kyle Orton is not losing games by being efficient. The Packers run defense has been gashed in recent weeks and Jones could have a monster day.
Why the Packers will win
WCG: The easy answer and the one I am sure Packers fans on message boards around the internet are talking about is it being a trap game for the Bears, but really that is looking for things that don't exist. This is the Bears vs. the Packers. There is no way either team enters the game in this rivalryunprepared or not focused. Both teams will bring in old players to talk about the importance of the game. Bears players like Urlacher and Brown have been on the wrong side of this matchup way too many times to let the younger players take this lightly. The answer for why the Pack could win is odds. The Bears are on a 6 game win streak. It has to end soon. Favre seems to save his best miracles for the Bears. This would be the perfect week for it. The Bears with a 2 game lead in the NFC North. The Packers nothing left to play for but pride. Why not take it to the Bears down at their house?
Craig: The curse of Brett Favre still exists on the Bears as he is an unbelievable 500-4 lifetime against the Bears. He has had great games against them even with the good defenses they have had so he has been their daddy for a long time. Just as Adam said, Favre seems to save some special miracle for the Bears. Even though I said the Bears offense has been efficient, the Packers pass defense has been very good the last couple of games and if they can slow down the run and get the lead, there's no way Orton beats them through the air. Al Harris has been a shut down corner this year and Carroll has been lights out as well the last 4 weeks, so they should do well against the average at best WR squad of the Bears.
What will really happen
WCG: It would be easy for me to say the Bears behind what should be a very good day for running backs, should beat the Packers soundly, but that wouldn't be the Bears. They don't believe in blowing teams out even when they should. I expect the Packers will get a TD and a FG or two, so like all Bears games it is safe to say the score will be something like 17-13.
Craig: The Packers are a sloppy team and seem to give at least 3 TOs a game. Doing that against a unit that can take any TO to the house would be disatrous. Rarely are the games between these two a blowout, but this year could be an exception. As much as I would like to crow about the Packers winning, I doubt they will, and especially not at Soldier Field. The Bears should run all over the Packers and return some TO for a score and cruise to a 27-10 win.