Vikings at Packers on Monday Night Football!

Frank Doyle previews tonight’s Monday Night Football game, where Minnesota visits Green Bay!

Christian Ponder made his NFL debut against the Green Bay Packers three weeks ago and he did pretty well. The Vikings had been awful all year and they did what struggling teams do – they threw the keys of the car to a new quarterback and hoped for the best.

Ponder delivered, or as well as a rookie quarterback can be expected to deliver against the best team in the League. The Packers won, 33-27, but the Vikings covered an eight point NFL betting line and did all you can ask any team to do: its best.

Whether that best will be good enough tonight is the question. The Packers are 8-0 straight up, 6-2-0 ATS and the best dang team in football. But while they’re the best, that doesn’t make them perfect. Aaron Rodgers’s incredible season is covering up a pretty poor defense that doesn’t look like it’d be able to stop a little old lady jumping the queue at the post office.

The Packers’ defense is particularly weak against the pass, but Adrian Peterson has made hay against the Packers throughout his career. Peterson’s averaged 109.1 yards per game against Green Bay in his career. When the teams met in Minnesota, Peterson reeled off 175 yards at 7.29 a clip. You can bet Green Bay defensive co-ordinator Dom Capers had a big picture of Peterson on his wall all week.

The reason Green Bay gets away with such a leaky defense is because its offense is so good. Aaron Rodgers is having a season for the ages and no matter how many points the defense gives up – and they were shredded by San Diego last week – you always get the feeling that Rodgers can march his men down the field for seven. Ain’t no thing to him.

Green Bay is a -13.5 point favorite tonight, with a total set at 50.5, the second highest of the weekend. The high total is easy to understand, as Green Bay can score but can’t defend.

Expect Minnesota to program Jared Allen to bring as much heat on Rodgers as he can and to ask Peterson to live up to his nickname and run all day. As for the Packers, that defense is in crisis right now and they know they can’t ask Rodgers to bail them out of every mess. They need to get busy tonight in front of home support.

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