Staff
The National Football League’s divisional round of the playoffs begin this Saturday afternoon in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Los Angeles Rams, fresh off their victory over the rival Seattle Seahawks in Super Wild Card Weekend, will travel to Lambeau Field to take on the NFC’s No. 1 seed Green Bay Packers.
The Rams will be looking for a second consecutive playoff upset just two years removed from a Super Bowl appearance where Sean McVay’s brilliant offense disappeared against Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots.
The Packers won the Super Bowl 10 years ago and haven’t been back to the dance since. However, they still have their franchise quarterback leading the way in Aaron Rodgers.
For some, the fan bases of these two teams aren’t exactly starving for a championship the way other teams are. Say that to those fans, though. In reality, whoever wins this game might very well be the NFC favorite for the Super Bowl LV on February 7 (how cool would it have been to have Super Bowl LV in Las Vegas?). For the Eagles, I’m sure they’d rather be either one of these teams currently.
Green Bay is -6.5 spread favorites over Los Angeles, who could be without a full-strength Aaron Donald, who suffered a rib injury in the Seahawks game. Remarkably – and likely for competitive advantage purposes – Donald told reporters he feels sore, but he’ll be ready come Saturday. That could be a match-up to zero in on, as the Rams will need Donald to come up big to have a chance for another upset. With Jared Goff starting for the Rams, McVay may have to have his best game of his career on the sidelines to steal this one.
Rodgers isn’t an MVP candidate for nothing. The Rams, despite adding some attractive names on defense over the years, likely won’t stop the 16-year (!) veteran. It’ll likely be a high-scoring game. With the over/under being 45.5 after opening at 46, the over is more likely than not. Rodgers has over 5,000 yards passing in 19 playoff games in his career – so the Rams’ passing defense ranked first in 2020, allowing 187.8 yards passing per game, and held Russell Wilson to 142 yards passing last weekend. With the game at Lambeau, the home-field advantage may be felt especially in this game despite no fans in attendance.
It’s going to be cold in Green Bay with the expected temperature at kickoff at a balmy 34 degrees. It will be cloudy, but as of this writing, it doesn’t seem like any precipitation will affect the game. Will that allow for a Green Bay advantage over the team from Los Angeles, especially with Goff nursing a sore thumb? With winds around 10 miles per hour, it doesn’t seem like the weather should be a huge factor in the outcome of this game.
Despite these teams having a rich history against each other, playing a total of 95 times since 1937, only two of those have come in the playoffs, a win for the Packers back in 1967 and a win for the Rams in 2002. The rubber match comes Saturday!
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