BY ADAM GREENE<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After three weeks of pure garbage match ups, the NFL decided to go ahead and put a game on Thursday Night Football that people might actually want to watch. The 3-1 Chicago Bears with Nick Foles at quarterback host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with their quarterback, some new guy\u2026 check notes\u2026 named Tam Blady? That can\u2019t be right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
TAMPA<\/strong> BAY<\/strong> BUCCANEERS AT CHICAGO BEARS (+4.5, O\/U: 43)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Location:<\/strong> Soldier Field, Chicago, Ill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kickoff:<\/strong> Oct. 8, 8:20 EST<\/p>\n\n\n\n Broadcast:<\/strong> FOX and NFL NETWORK<\/p>\n\n\n\n THE HISTORY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For years, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Chicago Bears both played in the NFC Central. Until 2002, the NFL just had three divisions in each conference, forcing some oddball rivalries. Some of those remain in effect today as, geographically, the Dallas Cowboys have no business being in the NFC East. But what are you going to do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n But because they played two games a year for 25 seasons, this will be the 60th<\/sup> all-time meeting between the two teams. The Bears, if you know your history (and the Bucs\u2019 ignoble place in it), have a significant advantage, leading the series 39-20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It hasn\u2019t been any better over the last decade. In their six match ups since 2011, Chicago is 3-2 and won their last face off, 48-10 in 2018. It was just another classic Mitchell Trubisky vs Jameis Winston QB duel, which saw Winston get the hook for Ryan Fitzpatrick in the fourth quarter after throwing two interceptions. Which, let\u2019s be honest, was a low total for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trubisky played lights out, tossing 354 yards and six touchdowns with no picks in the game. It would not be a performance he could ever repeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n TAMPA<\/strong> BAY<\/strong> BUCCANEERS (3-1)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n After stumbling out the gate against the New Orleans Saints, the Bucs are right where everyone thought they\u2019d be a month into the season. The worry that Tom Brady wouldn\u2019t be able to thrive in Bruce Arians downfield offense has, to this point, been unfounded. Though his interceptions are up, which must make Arians feel like he\u2019s picked up Greg\u2019s cursed idol from the Brady Bunch\u2019s trip to Hawaii. Pick sixes aside, Tampa\u2019s offense is humming and they\u2019ve even got a double-digit comeback under their belt to ride for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CHICAGO<\/strong> BEARS (3-1)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bears come in off their first loss and they can\u2019t be feeling great about it. Foles, in his first start for Chicago, managed just 11 points and only got the team into the end zone in the final quarter. To be fair, no one seriously thought the Bears could beat the Indianapolis Colts last Sunday, but they wanted more out of their QB \u201cupgrade\u201d than they got.<\/p>\n\n\n\n THE PICK<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n My last two Thursday picks have been duds, but I can honestly say I feel good about this one. I wouldn\u2019t be shocked to see Foles and Chicago look much better than they did Sunday and still fall to the Tampa Bay buzzsaw before this one is over. Bucs 34, Bears 23<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Follow our BetOnline Twitter accoun<\/a>t for the latest sports news and betting odds, and stay tuned on the Instagram feed<\/a> for more good information too.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BY ADAM GREENE After three weeks of pure garbage match ups, the NFL decided to go ahead and put a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":13846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13847,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13837\/revisions\/13847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}