Our expert’s guide to Sunday night football betting

The last time these two teams met, Aaron Rodgers scored a 6-yard touchdown with 4:40 left to score a 24-14 victory. Will Rodgers and Co. continue to own the Bears?

Match Bears vs. Packers

Bear offensive recovers Fields and Robinson

The Bears offense received good news when it was announced that Justin Fields would return with a rib injury after missing weeks 12 and 13. Fields gives the Bears offense another dimension due to of its jamming capacity. Fields climbed 2.8% of his losses in his first three starts, but only 15.3% since. He’s averaging 7.9 yards per scrum, down from 6.9 per passing attempt, so this is a major development.

Chicago received more good news when Allen Robinson II was left out of the final injury report after missing the last three games. In the middle of Chicago’s quarterback carousel, Robinson suffered the worst statistical season of his career, averaging just 37.7 yards per game. Still, he showed signs of life in his last game, amassing 68 yards on four catches. With Darnell Mooney and Cole Kmet continuing to emerge, putting Robinson back into the mix gives defenses another threat to consider.

Chicago’s biggest offensive threat, however, is running back David Montgomery, who averages 19.3 touches for 90.1 yards per game. Montgomery should be able to run around on a Packers’ 27th-ranked defense in DVOA against running.

The Bears’ biggest problem will be finishing the records, as the offense ranked 29th for third-drop conversion rate (34.2%) and 25th for red zone conversion rate (54.8% ). This is a clash in which Chicago could have some success, as Green Bay’s defense – despite resisting better than expected with a 14th place in DVOA – is only ranked 27th in third (43 , 7%) and 31st in the red zone. (71.9%).

Chicago’s way of packers blocked

You know what you get with the Packers: a healthy dose of Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon early on with as many Davante Adams as you can handle in between. Back in Week 6, the Bears did a job about as good a defense can hope for with Adams, limiting him to four catches on five targets and keeping him out of the end zone, despite having picked up 89 yards.

Still, Adams’s total accounted for more than half of Green Bay’s net passing yards, as Rodgers pitched for 195 yards but was sacked three times for a loss of 26 yards, leaving the Packers with a net. from just 169 yards in the air.

The Bears have held up better on the run than on the pass this season, but they obviously chose running as their poison in the opening match, allowing the Packers to go 154 yards on 31 carries. Bears defensive tackle Akiem Hicks only played 41% of the snaps in that game and has missed all but two games since. He is expected to be available this week for the first time since week 9. PFF classifies Hicks as a 68th percentile defender of the race, in addition to being a 69th percentile passer.

Like the Packers, the Bears rarely blitz. Rodgers will face a defense that sends extra rushers just 21.0 percent of the time, the seventh lowest in the NFL, according to Pro-Football-Reference Advanced Stats. Defensive coordinator Sean Desai’s goal for his defense is to bend but not to break, and he’s done quite well in that regard, limiting opponents to a 55.8% TD conversion rate in the red zone, 11th best. . The Packers struggled unusually in the red zone, hitting it in just 55.3 percent of the time, which is 24th in the NFL.

NFL picks: Bear vs.Packers

As usual, the audience is all over the Packers, who get 70% of bets at the time of writing. And why shouldn’t they be? The Packers are a 10-2 best NFL ATS (ATS) and have covered two of three games since Rodgers was taken off the COVID list.

Sportsbook knows the public loves the Packers, which is why they inflated the line more than two points above my projected spread of -10 and our PRO projection of -10.3 (check the odds in real time NFL here). This is also why we have been tracking five sharp moves on the Bears as of this writing, and why, despite only 30% of the tickets, the Bears make up more than half of the handle on this game (51%).

Teams that cover at this rate tend to see bloated lines which tends to make them unprofitable as the season progresses. Example: since 2003, the teams in the second half of the season (excluding week 17) which had covered at least two-thirds of their games so far are only 257-315-16 (44.9%) against the deviation, according to our Action Labs data.

The Bears lost by 10 in the first clash, but it took a late Rodgers touchdown and a resounding call that resulted in an interception of Fields by the Packers in the end zone when the Bears should have had free play on an offside penalty that was missed. . The Packers have been in 12 games this season and the final cannon has sounded only three times, with 13 or more points ahead of them. The Bears have also played 12 games, and only three times have they lost by 13 or more.

Covering a large number like this is especially difficult in a game that is expected to have a low score – which this game does – with a total of 42-44.

Since 2003, rDogs at least 11 points in matches with a total of 46 or less are 131-92-1 (59%) ATS.

In division matches, it improves to 54-31 ATS, a coverage rate of 64%.

Take: Bear +12.5 | Bet on: +11