Do the Packers have a bye week this weekend? I haven't heard if there's a game

Really though, the game this week should be tons of fun to watch, despite the fact I'm expecting it to be a bloodbath. I don't have any ill will towards Favre for joining the Vikings - it's pretty much the perfect situation for him since he won't feel like he has to carry that offense. I think Rodgers is a better QB than Favre to run the Packers current pass-oriented offense and I trust him more than Favre under pressure at this point. Which is a good thing, since the Packers pass blocking has been horrible this season and the Vikes might have the best defensive line in football. The Packers defense has been spotty thus far too - facing Adrian Peterson and a under-less-pressure Favre isn't a good recipe for a defense that is still learning its new scheme. I wouldn't be surprised if the Packers pick off Favre once or twice, but the Minnesota offense is likely to have its way with this team, and they're playing at home. I think the Packers easily lose this game by double digits.

Predicting the rest of the season

I should have posted predictions before the season started, but I didn't, so I'll go ahead and do it now. I'm giving a percentage chance (based mostly off the top of my head) of the team winning each game and simply adding them up to come up with a total. Obviously I'll add in their 1-1 record to that to come up with a final prediction. And for the record, I'd have probably given them about a 40% chance of victory against both the Packers at Green Bay and the Steelers, so I'd have picked them to be about 1-1 right now, with it being more likely that they'd end up 0-2 than 2-0.

@ Seattle - 60%
Lions - 70%
@ Falcons - 30%
@ Bengals - 50%
Browns - 60%
Cardinals - 50%
@ 49ers - 40%
Eagles - 40%
@ Vikings - 30%
Rams - 70%
Packers - 60%
@ Ravens - 40%
Vikings - 40%
@ Lions - 60%

I wouldn't give the Bears that good of a chance to beat the Seahawks in Seattle, except that it looks like Hasselbeck probably won't play. I feel like I might be a little high on the Bears' odds against the Cardinals, too. The Bears may have a better shot than I'm giving them credit for against the Vikings, especially at home, but right now the Vikings seem, to me, like one of the best teams in the league. And I think I might be overestimating the Falcons a little bit, too - they're a good team, but I'm not sure they're quite as good as I'm giving them credit for here.

So, adding all that up, it's 7.0 wins over the remainder of the season for a final record of 8-8. If you used my initial 40% shot against the Packers and Steelers, I'd have predicted 7.8-8.2. That sounds about right to me. I think the Bears are a decent team and should be around 8-8, and I wouldn't be surprised if they won more or less than that, but I'd have bet the under if you forced me to.

Still, even though that prediction is kind of pessimistic, I'm hopeful, too. All the Bears need to do is steal a game or two against the Vikings, Falcons, Eagles or Ravens and win the games they should win to have a good shot at the playoffs. I've got six games I think they "should" win, although I'm not hugely confident they will win all of them. But if they do, that's seven wins. There are eight games I think are tossups or probable losses - if the Bears go 3-5 in those games, that's ten wins and a good shot at the playoffs.

Don't get excited, Bears fans

Sure, the Bears won today. Against the defending champions. And Cutler was great. But Kyle Orton and the Broncos won by more. Never mind that they were playing a worse team and Orton managed to complete just over half his passes, the man is a winner and Jay Cutler is not.

This thread is for discussing how the season would be different if the Bears still had Orton instead of Cutler. You may also consider how it would be different if they merely had mini-Orton.

Predictions thread

Since I'll be largely internet-less this weekend while traveling, here's my prediciton for this weekend's Packers game:

Packers 27, Bungles 13

Cedric Benson stinks and could barely run against Denver's shambolic run defense, and Palmer doesn't have a lot of targets to throw to. I think the OL gets things together this week and Barbre has a confidence-building game against not-Ogunleye. Sadly I won't be able to watch this since I'll be in the heart of Redskins country, who should have a fun time blowing out StL at home. At least someone will be beating a St. Louis team this weekend

What does 0-2 mean?

This is going to be short, but David Haugh tweets:

Must-win looming for Bears? Only 13.8 percent of 0-2 teams have made playoffs since 1990 (STATS, Inc.)..that is an equation for urgency

The actual number is 22 out of 160 teams if you are checking my math

I have no doubt that Haugh is right, but I don't think people should make more of these numbers than they're worth.

Atari Bigby out ~4 weeks, Raji to make regular season debut, OL stuff

Packers starting SS Atari Bigby will miss at least 4 weeks with a knee injury suffered in Sunday's game.

What I'm taking away from last night's game

Last night's loss sucked, but it doesn't bother me that much. I don't have too high of hopes for the Bears this season. As long as Cutler, Forte, Olsen and Chris Williams get to play together and improve I'll be happy. The playoffs would be nice, but a loss doesn't concern me, just because I don't have huge expectations.

But here are my thoughts on last night's Bears/Packers game: