2009 Week 8 NFL Free Pick

By Adam Barone

 Lost in the media-driven pandemonium surrounding Brett Favre’s return to Green Bay is that Favre will be going up against the league’s third-ranked defense. The Packers will team up with the cold weather to make life difficult for the Vikings, and cover the three points.

        The Pack is allowing just 174.0 yards per game through the air, and Favre hasn’t played a single game in less-than-ideal conditions all season. In fact, the somewhat secretly stiff old man has managed to play five of his first seven games in a Vikings’ uniform in domes. Week one against Cleveland was outside, but that’s the Browns. Nobody ever uses them to make a point about anything other than “their schedule has been a cakewalk.” Maybe that is the point. Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, and at home against a Frank Gore-less 49ers team qualifies as relatively cakewalk-like. The second outdoor game was last week in Pittsburgh. The Vikings got sloppy and lost 27-17. Favre played reasonably well, but a pair of turnovers left him looking like the goat.

      Furthermore, Vikings’ running back Adrian Peterson may not be much of a factor in the game either. He averaged just 2.2 yards per carry in his first meeting with this new Packers’ 3-4 defense (25 carries for 55 yards), and just 3.8 per carry against Pittsburgh’s 3-4 last week (18 carries, 69 yards). Those performances account for his two lowest per-carry outputs of the season, as well as two of his three lowest yardage totals. The third game was against cakewalk participant St. Louis, when Peterson got just 14 carries.

      Obviously the best way to stop Peterson is to keep the ball out of his hands. He’s virtually unstoppable when given the opportunity, so the Packers will need to jump out to a lead early. That’s certainly a possibility, as Aaron Rodgers’ trials only Peyton Manning with a 110.8 quarterback rating on the season, and is tied for eighth in the league with 11 touchdown passes. (Keep in mind that he’s already had a bye week, while touchdown leader in Matt Schaub has not). In four career games against the Vikings, Rodgers has a 101.7 rating with three touchdowns and just one interception. He threw for 384 yards and two touchdowns in the first meeting with the Vikes this season.

      Also noteworthy, Vikings’ cornerback Antoine Winfield will miss his second straight game with a foot injury. Winfield is one of the better cornerbacks in the league, and among the best tackling cover-men.

      In recent showdowns, the Packers are 8-2 against the spread when facing an NFC North foe. They’re also 4-1 in their last five games as a favorite, while the Vikings have failed to cover the spread all but one of the last seven times that they’ve faced a team with a winning record.

      Don’t get mixed up in ridiculous clichés. Favre won’t win this game by himself because “he wants it really badly.” The Packers are at home, and are an underrated team with talent on both sides of the ball. The Vikings, however, are facing adversity for the first time this season.  Bet on the Pack.

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