{"id":5990,"date":"2019-08-07T21:38:52","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T21:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/?p=5990"},"modified":"2019-08-07T22:29:02","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T22:29:02","slug":"chicago-bears-still-the-class-of-improved-nfc-north","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/nfl\/chicago-bears-still-the-class-of-improved-nfc-north\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Bears Still The Class of Improved NFC North"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The expectation is that the NFC North will be significantly more competitive in 2019. Just take a look at the NFL futures betting odds<\/a> for the division–the Chicago Bears are favored at +180 right ahead of the Green Bay Packers (+200) and Minnesota Vikings (+220). Even the Detroit Lions are priced at single digit odds (+900) making the NFC North one of only two NFL division with all four teams priced at +1000 or lower (the AFC South is the other). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, the Chicago Bears made short work of the division finishing 12-4. The Minnesota Vikings had the only other winning record in the NFC North at 8-7-1 while traditionally competitive Green Bay slipped to 6-9-1. As the closely packed odds board suggests, there’s a a prevailing opinion that Minnesota and Green Bay will improve this year and join Chicago in the competitive mix atop the division:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CHICAGO BEARS:<\/strong> The Bears will face the Green Bay Packers on Thursday, September 5 to open the NFL schedule. First year head coach Matt Nagy did a great job with the team and most of the personnel from last year returns. Chicago traded running back Jordan Howard to Philadelphia before the draft and selected David Montgomery out of Iowa State. The thinking is that he’s a better fit for Nagy’s offense. He won’t have to carry the load himself as Mike Davis and Tarik Cohen have impressed in training camp. Bears fans will be pleased to know that kicker Cody Parkey is gone though the team hasn’t settled on a replacement. Also gone is defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, now the head coach in Denver. Bears look solid but the offense needs to be more consistently productive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MINNESOTA VIKINGS:<\/strong> Vikings are hoping to improve this year and will need to get more out of QB Kirk Cousins if they’re going to do it. Having Kevin Stefanski and Gary Kubiak both working on the offense should help. So too should a healthy offensive line that will add Garrett Bradbury out of NC State. Cousins has great receivers in Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen but needs the OL to improve after he was sacked 40 times last year. Vikings defense is in good shape led by linebacker Anthony Barr. Minnesota finished with the #4 total defense and #9 scoring defense so if the offense can improve this is a team that could easily compete with the Bears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GREEN BAY PACKERS:<\/strong> Aaron Rodgers and the Packers have now had back to back losing seasons for the first time since 1991. New head coach Matt LaFleur was brought in to restore some potency to the offense. He’s also going to call the plays meaning that if quarterback and coach aren’t of like mind things could get ugly. They might get ugly anyway. Wide receivers aren’t anything special and the team’s best running back Aaron Jones is prone to injury. That’s a bad tendency for a guy expected to be a ‘workhorse’ on the ground. Defense was below average in most statistical categories last year. Packers are going to have to have a lot go right if they’re going to compete for the division crown. The Vikings and Bears just look to be a cut above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DETROIT LIONS:<\/strong> The +900 on the Lions to win the division looks like an underlay. Detroit went 6-10 in Matt Patricia’s first year at the helm at one point losing 7 of 9 games and being outgained in 11 of 16 contests. His earned the gig with his work as the New England Patriots’ defensive coordinator and that’s really the only component of the Lions team that improved last year. If the Lions’ defense is going to take the next step, however, they’ll have to improve the linebacking and secondary but the line looks nasty and got better with the addition of DE Trey Flowers. Matthew Stafford regressed last year and his OL took a hit with the loss of TJ Lang. Detroit drafted tight end T.J. Hockenson out of Iowa–he’s a monster physically (6’5″ 251) and they’re hoping he’s able to contribute right away. Detroit might be incrementally better but not sure if that’ll get it done in a tough division. They might be able to leapfrog Green Bay for third place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PREDICTED ORDER OF FINISH:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. CHICAGO BEARS<\/li>
  2. MINNESOTA VIKINGS<\/li>
  3. DETROIT LIONS<\/li>
  4. GREEN BAY PACKERS<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    BET CHICAGO BEARS +180 TO WIN NFC NORTH
    BET CHICAGO BEARS WINS OVER GREEN BAY PACKERS WINS -110
    BET CHICAGO BEARS OVER 9 WINS +105
    BET DETROIT LIONS OVER 7 WINS +100
    BET DETROIT LIONS +1.5 WINS OVER GREEN BAY PACKERS -1.5 WINS +125
    BET GREEN BAY PACKERS UNDER 9 WINS -110
    BET GREEN BAY PACKERS TO MAKE THE PLAYOFFS–NO -110<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Get the latest NFL football odds and information–follow BetOnline.ag on Twitter<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The expectation is that the NFC North will be significantly more competitive in 2019. Just take a look at the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":5991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5992,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5990\/revisions\/5992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}