Will this week be remembered for being the week that we all came to the realisation that Tom Brady’s and Aaron Rodgers’ NFL careers were finally coming to an end? Probably not, but losses to PJ Walker’s Panthers and Taylor Heinicke’s Commanders might go down as career lows for both quarterbacks and things aren’t likely to get better with the Ravens and Bills up next.
Chicago Bears +8.5 @ New England Patriots: 40.5
Just as we got a Thursday night game with a bit of action, the schedule gods follow it up with this cracker of a Monday Night Football. The Patriots are looking for their third win a row, while the Bears are trying to avoid a fourth straight loss.
Bears
For the second week in a row we get the pleasure of watching the Bears in prime time after their edge of the seat loss to the Commanders in Week 6. Not for the first time this season, they managed just one touchdown in that game and heavily favoured the ground game despite playing a Commanders team whose weaknesses lied in the secondary.
After averaging 15 attempts per game in the Bears 2-1 start, Justin Fields has thrown the ball a whopping 70 times over the last three weeks, good for 23.3 attempts per game. Last week’s 27 pass attempts was a season high but he completed on just 52% on the way to 190 passing yards. He did also add on 88 yards on 12 carries (both also season highs). Ordinarily I would like the look of both his 160 yard passing line and 42.5 rushing line tonight but it would not be a surprise to see Belichik completely shut him down so I will avoid.
Darnell Mooney leads the Bears receivers at just 40 yards per game after having 68 yards on seven receptions last week. I could be tempted to take the over on Mooney to have a reception of 20.5 yards. He has hit that mark in each of the last three games where the Bears have been attempting slightly more passes.
It seems pretty obvious to lean the under on all of the other Bears receivers but Velus Jones and Equaniemous St Brown have crazy low lines of 3.5 and 13.5 yards. In a game the Bears are heavy underdogs in, you have to assume at least one of them hits the over there.
Khalil Herbert is the most explosive back and had a 63 yard run last week, but David Montgomery remains solid and so will continue to get the majority of the carries. I like the under on Montgomery’s highest rush attempt of 12.5 yards.
Patriots
After falling to 1-3 the Patriots have won back to back games with third string QB Bailey Zappe as the starter. He has been just fine and it’s probably more of a reflection on Mac Jones rather than Zappe himself that there have been rumblings of him having a chance to win the job full time.
Jones is back tonight but still looked to be carrying a limp prior to last weeks game so I’m definitely looking at the under on his passing line of 214.5. The Bears have not been good against the run and with Damien Harris back alongside Rhamondre Stevenson, we should see the Patriots run the ball 30+ times like they did last time both backs were healthy.
Stevenson’s rushing line is 62.5 and Harris’ is 50.5. I think I will avoid Harris just in case he doesn’t get his usual workload but will definitely take the Stevenson to go over 62.5. It might be worth adding Stevenson to score a touchdown to this to take it 11/5.
Jakobi Myers is clearly the number one target and he is averaging 80 yards per game this season. I would lean the over on his lines of 51.5 yards and 4.5 receptions but I think it’s an avoid in this game with Mac Jones returning from injury.
Another bet I do like on the Patriots though is for them to hit over 2.5 sacks against a porous Bears offensive line.
Who wins?
It’s obviously hard to see anything other than a Patriots win at home against a team averaging under 15 points a game on the road this season. But given this is probably going to be a low scorer, I don’t think I can take them at -8.5. I would lean the under on the total but 40.5 is probably a little too low to take.
I like the look of Patriots to win, Stevenson to score a touchdown and under 41 points which is 5/1 with William Hill.
TouchdownTips 
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