Green Bay Packers (8-2) at San Francisco 49ers (9-1)
Time: 7:20 p.m. CT, Sunday
Line: 49ers by 3 points
Playoff Seeding: Green Bay 2nd, San Francisco 1st
This game will likely be billed as a potential NFC Championship preview, but that won’t be the case if the Vikings have anything to say about this. Common sense says to always cheer against the Packers and with Minnesota trailing Green Bay by 1/2 game for the division lead coming in, they’ll need the 49ers to do their job.
The only issue here is that San Francisco comes into this game banged up. George Kittle, Emmanuel Sanders, and Deebo Samuel are all questionable for the Sunday night contest and another wave of 49ers including Matt Breida, Dee Ford and Robbie Gould are all doubtful leaving the 49ers extremely short-handed.
The good news is that the 49ers defense, which ranks first in passing yards allowed and second in interceptions, should be able to keep them in the game and perhaps neutralize Aaron Rodgers, who is in a #RevengeGame after the 49ers passed on him 14 years ago. They will have to deal with the rushing attack of Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams however, which could make this a smash-mouth type of game that favors San Francisco.
Again, in any situation, Vikings fans should naturally cheer against the Packers. It’s just how they were raised, but Green Bay already has a strong division tiebreaker after going 3-0 against the NFC North the first time around.
With a final stretch that includes several winnable games against Washington (1-9), Chicago (4-6), Detroit (3-6-1) and the New York Giants (2-8), this could be the final chance for the Packers to drop a game before the Week 16 showdown at U.S. Bank Stadium, making this the most pivotal game of the week for the Minnesota Vikings.