I can’t believe we are already well into August and true preseason football is in full swing, which puts the regular season less than a month out. We all know that preseason doesn’t count, and that preseason performance has absolutely no bearing on the regular season. Or does it? Here is an interesting tidbit of information for you: the last 10 Super Bowl Champions have not had a losing preseason.

Packers vs. Steelers: Preseason Week 2

Mike McCarthy loves winning in the first couple of weeks of preseason football. In 2017 McCarthy blew out the Eagles 24 to 9 Week 1. In 2016 McCarthy beat the Browns 17-11 in Week 1. In 2015 he took down the Patriots 22 to 11. Some coaches care about preseason some don’t, some tend to win in Week 1 some in Week 3 (or any other combo of weeks).

I knew that Mike McCarthy was going to come out and try to win against Mike Vrabel and the Titans. And after listening to his press conferences, Vrabel sounded like he is much more interested in evaluating his team, which makes sense since he is a new head coach in a new organization [to him]. So I was almost positive that the Packers were going to blow them out. And they did. I was so confident of this that I recommended to my friends that they keep an eye on the NFL Odds and take the Packers if they were planning on betting the game.

Next up we have the Steelers, and this one will be harder to predict because Mike Tomlin likes winning in Week 2 of preseason ball almost as much as Mike McCarthy. Going back to 2013 the Packers have only lost once in Week 2, and that was to … you guessed it, the Pittsburgh Steelers. We beat the Rams 19-7 in 2013 and 21-7 in 2014, then we lost to the Steelers in 2015 but hit the Raiders 20-12 in 2016. Then last season we took down the Redskins 21-17.

Conversely, the Steelers lost to the Skins in 2013 then bounced back and beat the Bills in 2014. Tomlin took down McCarthy 24-19 in 2015, but then got destroyed 17-0 by the Eagles in 2016. Last season they beat the Falcons in Week 2, 17-13.

We are dealing with two guys who love to win in Week 2. McCarthy has a better Week 2 record, but as we saw in 2015, Tomlin isn’t going to let McCarthy take an easy victory. This is going to be a battle, because you can bet that McCarthy wants to get one back off Tomlin.

The NFL Odds have not been released at the time of writing this, but you can bet that the Steelers will be slight favorites at home. That said, even if the Steelers squeak out a win, it is going to be close.

Prediction for Preseason Week 2: Take the Packers against the Spread.

Regular Season Week 1 Against the Bears

Despite all of the hype surrounding Mitch Trubisky and a vastly improved Bears squad. The Packers are still favored by 8 points. A couple of shops even have Green Bay as 9-point favorites.

The Packers have beaten the Bears the last 8 of 10 times they’ve played and of those 8, they have won the last four consecutively. The Chicago Bears are going to lose in Green Bay in the first week of the regular season, but I think it might be a bit slightly more competitive than people are thinking. Of course, Aaron Rodgers and crew could just come out swinging and put up a ton of digits on the Bears. But Chicago’s defense is looking much better than the last couple of years. I see this as a 13-21 or 13-20 game.