Green Bay (6-3) at Chicago (4-5)
Sunday, 1 p.m. EST, FOX
BetMGM NFL odds: Packers by 2 1/2.
Against the spread: Packers 4-5; Bears 4-4-1
Series record: Packers lead 107-95-6
Last meeting: Packers beat Bears 17-9 in Green Bay, Wis., on Jan. 7, 2024.
Last week: Packers had bye, before that lost to Detroit 24-14; Bears lost 19-3 to New England.
Packers offense: overall (3), rush (3), pass (7), scoring (9).
Packers defense: overall (12), rush (10), pass (15), scoring (11).
Bears offense: overall (30), rush (24), pass (30), scoring (24).
Bears defense: overall (13), rush (24), pass (7), scoring (7).
Turnover differential: Packers plus-6; Bears plus-8.
QB Jordan Love. Green Bay’s bye week benefited Love, who has practiced fully this week after playing through a groin strain in the loss to the Lions. Love has thrown for 1,820 yards and 15 touchdowns, but he’s also been picked off 10 times despite missing two full games with a knee injury and nearly half of a third game because of the groin issue. Love combined to throw for five touchdowns without an interception in two wins over the Bears last season.
QB Caleb Williams. The Bears have a new offensive coordinator after firing Shane Waldron and replacing him with passing game coordinator Thomas Brown. The question now is whether Williams can get on track. The No. 1 overall pick has struggled in Chicago's three-game losing streak after a promising stretch prior to that. Williams is 48 of 95 without a TD during this skid and was sacked nine times against New England.
Green Bay's pass rush against Chicago's blockers. The Packers are tied for 19th in the NFL with 22 sacks, so they haven't exactly been pummeling quarterbacks. But they might have a chance to get some pressure against a struggling and banged up line. Williams has been sacked a league-leading 38 times, in part because of his tendency to hold onto the ball too long.
Packers CB Jaire Alexander (knee), C Josh Myers (wrist) and S Evan Williams (hamstring) practiced on a limited basis Wednesday after missing the Lions game. ... The Bears placed S Jaquan Brisker (concussion) on injured reserve on Thursday. He has missed the past four games and will miss at least four more after being placed on IR. ... The offensive line could have two starters back with LT Braxton Jones (knee) and RT Darnell Wright (knee) returning to practice on Wednesday. Jones has missed the past two games, and Wright sat out last week. ... DE Montez Sweat (ankle) and special teams player Tarvarius Moore (concussion) returned to practice Thursday after sitting out the previous day. ... LG Teven Jenkins (ankle) left last week's game.
The Packers have won 10 straight and 25 of the past 28 meetings, including the NFC championship game at the end of the 2010 season. That ties the longest streak by either team in the rivalry, matching a run by Green Bay from 1994 to 1998. The Packers haven’t allowed more than 20 points in any of their past five road victories over the Bears. The only other NFL team to do that in Chicago was Green Bay as well, from 1928 to 1930.
Green Bay is third in the NFC North behind Detroit (8-1) and Minnesota (7-2). ... The Packers won four straight before losing to Detroit. ... The Packers are one of three teams to rank in the top 10 in the league in total offense, rushing offense, passing offense and scoring. The others are Baltimore and San Francisco. … Green Bay has 19 takeaways, tied for second with Buffalo behind Minnesota (20). … The Packers have 62 points off turnovers — second to Buffalo (78). … Packers S Xavier McKinney has six interceptions to tie Detroit’s Kerby Joseph for the NFL lead. McKinney has a league-high seven takeaways, including a fumble recovery. … TE Tucker Kraft has five touchdown catches in his past six games. ... The Bears have gone without a touchdown in back-to-back games for the first time since 2004. The offense has 23 consecutive possessions without a TD since scoring in the final minute at Washington in Week 8, when Chicago lost on a Hail Mary. In the three games since the bye, the offense has produced just two touchdowns in 34 drives. ... Chicago has held opponents to 10 touchdowns on 27 trips inside the red zone for a league-low 37% rate. ... K Cairo Santos is tied for third in the NFL with six field goals of 50 yards or more — one shy of his franchise record.
Packers RB Josh Jacobs comes into the game fourth in the league with 762 yards rushing and will be going against a defense that's a bit vulnerable against the run.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams sits on the bench in the closing minutes of an NFL football game against the New England Patriots on Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love (10) runs around Detroit Lions defensive end Pat O'Connor (95) during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, putting a man whose views public health officials have decried as dangerous in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid.
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said Thursday in a post on his Truth Social site announcing the appointment. Kennedy, he said, would “end the Chronic Disease epidemic" and “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Kennedy is one of the most prominent anti-vaccine activists in the world and has long advanced the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism and other health issues.
Hailing from one of the nation's most storied political families, Kennedy is the son of the late Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy. He first challenged President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination last year. He then ran as an independent before abandoning his bid after striking a deal to give Trump his endorsement with a promise to have a role overseeing health policy in a second Trump administration.
He and the president-elect have since become good friends. The two campaigned together extensively during the race's final stretch, and Trump had made clear he intended to give Kennedy a major role overseeing public health as part of a campaign to "Make America Healthy Again.”
“I'm going to let him go wild on health," Trump said at a rally last month.
During his victory speech in Palm Beach, Florida, last week, Trump exclaimed, "Go have a good time, Bobby!”
Still, it was unclear precisely what job he would be offered. In an October interview on CNN, Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick assured there was no way Kennedy would receive the job he got.
The appointment drew alarms from public health experts.
“Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is not remotely qualified for the role and should be nowhere near the science-based agencies that safeguard our nutrition, food safety, and health,” said Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the public health watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Associated Press, “I don’t want to go backwards and see children or adults suffer or lose their lives to remind us that vaccines work, and so I am concerned."
“Any misinformation coming from places of influence, of power, are concerning," she said.
During the campaign, Kennedy told NewsNation that Trump had asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the CDC, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.
Kennedy has pushed against processed foods and the use of herbicides like Roundup weed killer. He has long criticized the large commercial farms and animal feeding operations that dominate the industry.
But he is perhaps best known for his criticism of childhood vaccines.
Again and again, Kennedy has made his opposition to vaccines clear. In July, he said in a podcast interview that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” and told FOX News that he still believes in the long-ago debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism.
In a 2021 podcast he urged people to “resist” CDC guidelines that advise when kids should receive routine vaccinations.
“I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, ‘Better not get them vaccinated,’” Kennedy said.
Repeated scientific studies in the U.S. and abroad have found no link between vaccines and autism. Vaccines have been proven safe and effective in laboratory testing and in real world use in hundreds of millions of people over decades. The World Health Organization credits childhood vaccines with preventing as many as 5 million deaths a year
Trump during his first term launched Operation Warp Speed, an effort to speed the production and distribution of a vaccine to combat COVID-19. The resulting vaccines were widely credited, including by Trump himself, with saving many lives.
Trump, in his announcement, said that, under Kennedy, HHS would "play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country.” But HHS does not have jurisdiction over many of those issues, which fall under the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculture.
Kennedy is an attorney who has built a loyal following over several decades of people who admire his lawsuits against major pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. He has pushed for tighter regulations around the ingredients in foods.
With the Trump campaign, he worked to shore up support among young mothers in particular, with his message of making food more healthful in the U.S., promising to model regulations after those imposed in Europe. In a nod to Trump’s original campaign slogan, he named the effort “Make America Healthy Again.”
It remains unclear how that will square with Trump’s history of deregulation of big industries, including food. Trump has pushed for fewer inspections of the meat industry, for example.
Kennedy’s stance on vaccines raises question about his ability to get confirmed, even in a GOP-controlled Senate.
He also has said he would recommend removing fluoride from drinking water, although fluoride levels are mandated by state and local governments. The addition of the material has been cited as leading to improved dental health and is considered safe at low levels.
He has said he would seek to ban certain food additives, cracking down on substances such as food dyes and preservatives, which are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. He has also targeted pesticides, which are jointly regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and the FDA.
Kennedy has also drawn headlines for his history with wild animals. He admitted to dumping a dead bear in New York’s Central Park — placing it as though it had been hit by a bike — and found himself the subject of a federal probe after his daughter revealed that he had cut off a beached whale’s head and strapped it to the roof of his car to take home.
HHS has more than 80,000 employees across the country. Kennedy has promised to take a serious look at those who work for HHS and its agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the CDC.
He has said he is especially focused on putting an end to the “revolving door” of employees who have previous history working for pharmaceutical companies or leave government service to work for that industry, his former campaign communications manager, Del Bigtree, told the AP last month. Bigtree is also an anti-vaccine organizer.
Kennedy said he wanted to fire 600 employees at the National Institutes of Health, which oversees vaccine research.
The expected appointment was first reported by Politico Thursday.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
Trump also announced Thursday that he will nominate Jay Clayton, who served as chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission during his first term, to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
__ Seitz reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Zeke Miller in Washington and JoNel Aleccia in Temecula, California contributed to this report.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign event Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
FILE - Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign event, Sept. 27, 2024 in Walker, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
