Don't judge by the company they keep -- Packers are dangerous

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The temptation is to torch the NFC North. Just rip it into little bitty pieces, pieces as small as Brian Urlacher's impact on any given Sunday.

There are four teams in the NFC North, and none has a winning record. One, Detroit, doesn't even have a win. The Bears have lost two consecutive games, and they're tied for first. One of the teams they're tied with, Minnesota, has Gus Frerotte at quarterback.

This division sucks. And I'm gonna write that.

But then ...

There's Green Bay.

And Green Bay doesn't suck. The Packers are also tied for first in the NFC North, their 37-3 blowout of Chicago on Sunday giving them the same mediocre 5-5 record as Minnesota and Chicago.

But Green Bay isn't mediocre. Green Bay is actually pretty good. And before you accuse me of falling for a team based on one lopsided game -- and this was Green Bay's biggest blowout of Chicago in 14 years -- understand that I was at Lambeau Field on Oct. 5 when the Packers lost 27-24 to Atlanta. And I was sort of smitten then.

So now I've moved on to something more serious than smitten. This is an outright man crush I have for Green Bay, certainly as the Packers relate to the rest of the division. The NFC North has one horrendous team (Detroit), one lousy team (Chicago), one mediocre team (Minnesota) and one legitimate playoff team. And that's the Packers.

Sunday showed everything the Packers have. Their defense scored its seventh touchdown of the season, a club record with six games to play. The Packers have scored nine touchdowns on returns, including two on punts.

In Aaron Rodgers they have a quarterback gutsy enough to play through a sprained throwing shoulder and good enough to turn in Pro Bowl numbers when healthy. He threw for 227 yards and two touchdowns Sunday and was nearly perfect, going 23-for-30 with incompletions including a drop, a spike and two throwaways to avoid sacks.

Look for Green Bay and Aaron Rodgers to be making noise in January. (US Presswire)

In Ryan Grant they have a running back who pounded out 145 yards on the Bears' vaunted rushing defense and is on pace for more than 1,200 yards. Grant, one of the few people making Notre Dame look good this season, was knocked out of the game in the second quarter when Bears safety Mike Brown slammed into him after a 20-yard head start. Grant returned, and when Brown took another downhill shot at him later in the quarter, Grant ran through him for another 5 yards. That came during a three-carry, 30-yard flurry that Grant capped with a touchdown.

And about that touchdown ... it has to be one of the most uplifting scores of the season for the Packers. And one of the most humiliating allowed by Chicago. Green Bay was on the Bears' 4 and gave the ball to Grant behind the right side of the offensive line. By the time the play was finished, the entire pile was 2 yards deep in the end zone.

"We got pushed around," said Bears defensive coordinator Bob Babich.

"This is November football," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said of his team's physical play, "and this is how you have to do it."

The Packers will be playing in January. Mark my words. No, it's not the gutsiest stand I've ever made. (Predicting Vince Young would be a colossal NFL flop before his first game wasn't bad.) Someone from the NFC North will be playing in the playoffs in January, and there's a one-in-three chance it'll be Green Bay.

But the truth is, the Packers' odds are better than that. The Bears, for one thing, are toast. They're trash. Kyle Orton is a decent quarterback, but he's playing on a gimpy ankle and throwing to one of the worst receiving corps in the NFL. His big game against Detroit notwithstanding -- everyone has a big game against Detroit -- rookie running back Matt Forte has hit the wall. The Bears' defense has suspect cornerbacks and a washed-up middle linebacker. The return game, their best weapon for two years, is shooting blanks.

And their coach, Lovie Smith, shows his in-game weakness by making mistakes like the one Sunday when he threw the ball -- twice -- inside his own 10 when three running plays would have run out the half. Instead, the Bears shanked the punt, the Packers took over at the Chicago 40, and with 15 seconds left Green Bay kicked a field goal for a 17-3 lead.

Forget Chicago. Chicago can't make it into the playoffs. That leaves Green Bay, and it leaves Minnesota, and here's all you need to know about those teams:

Green Bay has outscored its first 10 opponents by a combined total of 274-209.

Minnesota has been outscored 234-223.

Forget Minnesota. The Vikings aren't going to the playoffs, not unless Adrian Peterson carries the ball 40 times per game. And Peterson had just 19 touches Sunday in a loss to Tampa Bay -- none in the fourth quarter. Who's coaching the Vikings, anyway? Lovie Smith?

That leaves Green Bay, which is 5-5 but lost one game on a missed field goal at the end of regulation and lost another in overtime, at unbeaten Tennessee, after losing the coin flip and never getting the ball. The Packers could be as good as 7-3. They will be no worse than 9-7, and the only team in the NFC that should expect to beat them in the playoffs is the New York Giants.