Packers vs. Vikings Spread Shocker: Historic Change Has Fans Going Wild

After the Minnesota Vikings beat the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday to improve to 13-2, they were 2-point favorites for this week’s game against the Green Bay Packers.

By Christmas morning, the Packers (11-4) had moved to a 1-point favorite. After shifting back in Minnesota’s direction, Green Bay was a 1-point favorite as of Friday night. The line was 1.5-point favorites at some sportsbooks, including at FanDuel, where 59 percent of the money is on Green Bay even though 52 percent of the bets are on Minnesota.

According to Ed Salmons, the vice president of risk management for SuperBook Sports, sharp money has pushed the line Green Bay’s way.

“Professional money is slowly moving the Packers to the favorite,” Salmons said.

“For the most part,” he added, “I think the Packers are much more thought of than the Vikings from our part of the world.”

Nonetheless, it’s wild to see the 13-win Vikings, playing at home against a team they beat earlier in the season, as an underdog. Indeed, if that line holds until the 3:25 p.m. kickoff, it would be unbelievably rare.

Dating to 1972, according to Stathead, only 11 times has a team that finished with 14-plus wins been an underdog. Most of those games – such as the juggernaut Packers’ memorable victory over the Lions in 2011 – came in the final week of the regular season, when key players got the day off.

In fact, only five times has a team that finished with at least 14 wins been an underdog in a game that was not the final game of the regular season.

Two of those games came this century, and they both came with an asterisk.

– In 2022, when the Eagles were 4.5-point underdogs without quarterback Jalen Hurts at Dallas.

– In 2005, with the AFC’s No.1 seed wrapped up, Peyton Manning played only one quarter for the Indianapolis Colts against the Seattle Seahawks.

Finally, for a true comparison, you have to go all the way back to Dec. 7, 1986. The Washington Redskins were 3.5-point favorites at home against the New York Giants. Both teams were 11-2.