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The first Thursday night game of the 2012 NFL season renews one of the oldest rivalries in the NFL with the Chicago Bears visiting the Green Bay Packers. The Bears are coming off a 41-21 Week 1 home win over the lowly Indianapolis Colts, easily covering as 10-point favorites. However, Da Bears haven’t won at Lambeau Field since October 2007, during Brett Favre’s final season with the Pack.

SPREAD: Packers -5.5
MONEY LINE: Bears +225, Packers -265
OVER/UNDER: 49.5

It seems almost inconceivable that Aaron Rodgers and the Packers, who went 15-1 last season, could start 2012 0-2, but that’s what they’re facing after a surprising 40-32 home loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Week 1, a game Green Bay entered as six-point favorites. Before last week, the Packers hadn’t lost a home regular season game since an October 2010 overtime home loss to the Miami Dolphins.

The last time these two clubs met, the Packers covered as 13-point home favorites in a 35-21 home win on Christmas Day. Green Bay also won and covered as road favorites last September and in January 2011 at Chicago in the NFC Championship Game. In the final game of the 2010 regular season, the Packers won but failed to cover as home favorites, and in September 2010, the Bears beat the Packers at home on Monday Night Football on their way to an improbable division championship.

Both Chicago’s and Green Bay’s games last week went Over. Green Bay’s home win over Chicago last Christmas went Over, snapping a string of eight straight Bears-Packers games that went Under, including three games at Lambeau.

If I was a gambling man, I’d take the Packers and the Under.