NFC NORTH 2021 PREDICTIONS

BY ADAM GREENE

I hope you are sitting down. There’s an old timey phrase I still like to use form time to time and it’s this, “gird your loins!” How old timey? I’m pretty sure it’s from the Bible, but the meaning is clear. Prepare yourself, because something is about to go down.

What’s going down, you ask with your loins girded?

I am about to make the least shocking, most boring, easily defended and just yawn-worthy NFC North prediction in all of human history. This is the water off a duck’s back of NFL picks. And that’s an old timey phrase too, but I’m not sure of its origin. I don’t think there are a lot of ducks mentioned in the Bible.

Ready? Here goes. The winner and only playoff team coming out of the NFC North in 2021 will be….

GREEN BAY PACKERS: 13-4

I know. After reading that, you may wish you’d had all your prescriptions updated so as to calm your nerves as I have predicted the team that’s won the NFC North 11 times in the division’s 19 year history will do so again. Why? Because Aaron Rodgers has decided to forgo retirement and forcing a trade this season to take one last ride with Devonte Adams and Randall Cobb, who he literally forced the team to acquire in a trade from the Houston Texans.

Rodgers went into the playoffs with the worst wideout depth chart in the league last year. He wasn’t letting it happen again.

The rest of the roster is elite and so is the coaching staff. It should be no secret, yet no one is talking about it, that head coach Matt LeFleur has won more games in his first three seasons than any other coach in NFL history. The man is 28-8 counting the postseason. The Pack taking the NFC North this season is about as sure a bet as you can make. Now, what they do in the playoffs with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Los Angeles Rams sitting there is another story.

CHICAGO BEARS: 8-9

I’m going to say a few words in defense of Matt Nagy as a head coach because, I ask this of anyone, who else could have taken this Bears team to the playoffs in two of the last four seasons? He’s 28-22 and, until this season, the best QB on his roster was Mitchell Trubisky and occasionally Nick Foles. But still, twice, Nagy has coached this team into the playoffs. Do you know how many teams would kill to have that? In this division, no less?

Who’s doing a better job there? And would he leave the Rams, Patriots or Chiefs to come coach in Chicago?

Relax on the firing Nagy talk. Justin Fields isn’t starting Week One, but there’s a solid chance he takes over the rest of the way and Chicago once again flirts with a playoff berth. I just don’t think they get it this year. Next year, they’ll probably win the division.

MINNESOTA VIKINGS: 7-10

Kirk Cousins will spend the season on and off the COVID-19 list by either catching it or coming into contact with someone who does. Just being in the vicinity of someone with it costs you a game. Catching it, at least two. This is a nine win team at its absolute best, so even saying they’ll claim victory in seven is probably a little high.

DETROIT LIONS: 3-14

The only reason the Detroit Lions won’t be the worst team in the NFL this season is because the Houston Texans exist. I don’t like Dan Campbell as a coaching hire and nothing coming out of camp about Jared Goff and this offense makes me excited to do anything but bet against them.

The NFL season begins on Thursday, Sep. 9 and the Week 1 Schedule is up and taking bets at BetOnline.AG.

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