Are the Green Bay Packers dead in the water? That’s the question the NFL world is asking in the wake of the Aaron Rodgers injury, a fractured collarbone last night on Monday Night Football, a game his team lost 27-20 to the Chicago Bears, slipping into a three-way tie with the Bears and Detroit Lions for first place in the NFC North.
After a run of two seasons where they won the Super Bowl (2010) and then finished 15-1 in the regular season (2011), the Green Bay Packers slipped a bit in the 2012 season. They still won 11 games, the NFC North and a first-round playoff game. The lingering memory though, is a postseason beatdown in San Francisco and the question for our NFL analysis is whether the Packers are still Super Bowl-caliber in 2013.
Preseason predictions are an inexact science, to say the least. Obviously, that’s why you play the games- what’s important is not which team some random dude thinks is going to win the Super Bowl, we care about who actually goes out and wins the damn thing.
So why bother reading an article about which team some random dude thinks is going to win the Super Bowl? Because we have nothing better to do before the teams actually start playing, that’s why.
In case you do have better things to do, here’s the cliffs notes version: The Packers, in my mind, were the best team in the NFC over the course of the entire season a year ago. That being said, it was obvious that the Giants were the better team in the end, but they’ve lost significant players.
The Patriots came thisclose, again, to beating the Giants in the Super Bowl, and there’s no reason to believe they can’t get right back there again. So how did I choose between the Packers and the Patriots? Well, I’m a Vikings fan, so I can’t choose the Packers, and that left the Patriots. Juuuuust kidding. Mostly.
So the rest of this article will flesh out just why I think the Patriots the best pick to win the Super Bowl this year, and why the Packers the next best choice.
Over the last two seasons the Green Bay Packers have won the Super Bowl, turned in a 15-1 regular season and produced a league MVP, as quarterback Aaron Rodgers won the award last season. But a playoff loss to the New York Giants sticks in the craw as the start of the 2012 regular season draws closer. TheSportsNotebook previews the Packers and their chances of a second Super Bowl title in three years…