NFL Betting: Minnesota Vikings at Chicago Bears

By BetOnline September 27, 2019

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With the Green Bay Packers losing on Thursday Night Football and falling to 3-1-0 and the Detroit Lions (2-0-1) set to face the Kansas City Chiefs this week, the Minnesota Vikings-Chicago Bears clash now becomes an early battle for first place in the NFC North. Both teams have solid defenses and quarterbacks they don’t fully trust. Which side is the best bet in this game?

MINNESOTA VIKINGS AT CHICAGO BEARS
NFL ODDS: BEARS -2.5
NFL TOTAL: 38

WHY THE VIKINGS WILL COVER THE SPREAD

The Vikings’ best hope in this game is the opposing team’s quarterback: Mitchell Trubisky. He has not looked particularly sharp in the early stages of this season – even after a somewhat good effort on Monday Night Football. Prior to that, the Bears were immensely fortunate to win in Denver in Week 2 against a bad Bronco team. Chicago needed an incorrect roughing the passer penalty, a long fourth-down pass, and then a 53-yard field goal at the gun to beat Denver. The offense was in hibernation for most of that game. The Bears were atrocious in Week 1 at home against the Packers. If the Bears and Trubisky play the way they did in those first two games, they will lose this game.

Trubisky is making a lot of checkdown throws. His ability to throw the ball down the field and generate big gains is very uncertain right now. The Vikings have a very talented defense which has performed extremely well this season. All they have to do is cut-off the running game and put the ball in his hands. He’ll make enough mistakes to give them a good chance to win.

WHY THE BEARS WILL COVER THE SPREAD

Everything one could say about the Vikings’ ability to cover the spread also applies to the Bears’ ability to cover the spread. Chicago’s best bet to cover the spread is Minnesota’s quarterback. Kirk Cousins, who has not yet shown that he can be a consistently strong, clutch quarterback. These are the games they got him for but as we saw two weeks ago, he’s just not an elite quarterback. In Week 2 at Green Bay, when Minnesota was trailing the Green Bay Packers 21-16, Cousins threw a brutal interception when the Vikings had first and goal just inside the 10 with nearly five minutes left in regulation.

That means that the Bears recipe for success is similar to the Vikings: stop the opponent’s ground game and force it on Cousins.

As for Trubisky, it’s true that he’s been awful but he is coming off a good game on Monday Night Football where he had three touchdown passes and completed 80.6% of his passes. Yes, the Redskins made it super easy for him but he should be confident this week. After all, he didn’t have a single touchdown pass in the first two games of the season.

TAKING A LOOK AT THE TOTAL

The quarterbacks are the weak points for both teams. This points to a low-scoring game which will go below the number, but the one thing to remember is that the quarterbacks could both throw pick-sixes. Defenses scoring touchdowns directly off turnovers could create more points than the total. Still, the under is a better play as we should see both teams just try to pound the ball on the ground and grind out a win.