Chicago and San Francisco face off in what is a pretty important game for both teams in trying to secure a bye and home game during the divisional round. The tie last week put the 49ers a half game back of the Bears, so that tiebreakers won’t likely come into play. Getting the most wins certainly does, though, and the winner will be in much better shape.

Both, though, will face off without their starting quarterbacks as Cutler and Alex Smith join Michael Vick in missing this week with concussions. The Bears were horrid last year with Caleb Hanie in relief of Jay Cutler. They hope that Jason Campbell is a much better solution. Campbell is a tweener guy, good enough to start for a decent amount of teams, but also in backup range. If you dropped him on about six teams, he might be a better option. His issue has always revolved around making the dynamic pass and getting rid of the ball. He has the arm strength but is conservative. With the Bears, though, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially in a defensive game.

Colin Kaepernick is more of an unknown. He is a gazelle as a runner, but more erratic passing, though his career numbers on a small number of attempts has him at 61% and 7.8 yards per attempt. If he didn’t have tattoos everywhere, he is the quarterback that should be all over First Take. I expect Harbaugh to put him in positions to succeed and play to his strength, and for Kaepernick to use his legs and make some deep throws off rollouts.

[photo via US Presswire]