NFL Late Afternoon Games: Raiders Open At Home Against 2-0 Jets, Packers and Bears in NFC Championship Game Rematch

The other matchups on CBS are Kansas City at San Diego, and Baltimore at St. Louis. Two years ago, when the Chiefs safeties were about as good as they are this year without Berry, Philip Rivers and Vincent Jackson played pitch and catch on forty yard routes all day. The Chargers should handle the Chiefs, but injuries should conspire to keep it closer than the Chiefs first two games–Gates, Tolbert and Floyd are all out on offense.

In St. Louis, the Ravens try to bounce back in a road inter-conference game. The secondary was without rookie starter Jimmy Williams and reserve Chris Carr last week, and the others struggled. They need to play better if Baltimore is going to survive another road game.

Three division games highlight the NFC options. The most prominent is in Chicago, at the same location where the Packers advanced to the Super Bowl in January. The Packers are 29-22 in Chicago since 1960, which is basically identical to their 29-21 record in Green Bay against the Bears. Last year, the Bears won the regular season game at home when the Packers committed 18 penalties, then limited the Packers to 10 points in the must-win finale for Green Bay. The Bears did a decent job of limiting Rodgers despite his putting up decent numbers, as the Packers averaged 16 points in the three games a year ago.

The key for Chicago, pretty clearly, is keeping Jay Cutler reasonably upright during the game. Cutler has been sacked 11 times already and is completing only 53.2% of his passes on the season.

Atlanta at Tampa Bay is another key swing game this year. The Bucs lost two close games to Atlanta last year. These teams are both 1-1, and the winner would have a key victory over another team likely to be in a logjam of teams between 8 and 10 wins in the NFC.

Finally, Arizona and Seattle play. It’s an NFC West game. Bless you if you are watching it.

[photo via Getty]