The Big Monday Night Preview: Bears set for blowout loss?

By Sam Cook

Chicago Bears (2-4) @ New England Patriots (3-3)

Monday Night Football heads to Foxboro this week and will see two QBs from the 2021 draft class face off however they won’t be top of their class in this matchup. Two run heavy offences will take the field with Pats QB Mac Jones expected to return, but still potentially carrying the effects of an injury, facing off against Justin Fields, who has the fewest yards of any QB that started all 6 games. Couple that with the conditions it’s fair to say expect running and lots of it in what could potentially be a very long, very attritional game in a cold and rainy New England.

The visitors somehow stumbled to a 2-1 start beating the 49ers despite having 50 less passing yards and over 75 less rushing yards. Ultimately the penalties cost San Francisco and gifted Chicago the win (99 penalty yards to 24). Defeat to the Packers seemed expected, however given Green Bay’s struggles since it does raise questions especially considering it was a 17 point loss. Victory via the last second boot of Eddie Pineiro defeated the Texans (1-1-4) however the Bears put up only 363 yards of offence. This was their 2nd highest yardage of the season but it came against a team that has allowed 421.6 yards per game in their other 5 contests- a damning stat for Chicago’s offence. Since that win the Bears have been on a 3 game slide (Vikings 5-1 & Giants 6-1 understandable losses) culminating in a 12-7 defeat to the Commanders, who had themselves been on a 4 game losing run prior to their Thursday Night matchup against the Bears. Low scoring, low yardage and on the road versus the Pats- looks like this game is only going to go one way.

Onto the Patriots they sit 3-3 and are coming off 2 huge victories with a combined aggregate score of 68-15. Their shutout against the Lions (at the time they were the highest scoring team in the league with 35 PPG) and their big win against Cleveland put them back amongst it in the AFC East. Four turnovers vs the Browns highlighted the prominence of their defence only a week after shutting out the high scoring Lions. Prior to that they’d suffered an overtime loss to the Packers (pushed them far closer than the Bears did) and had lost to the Phins and Ravens on account of their turnovers (4 & 3 respectively). Their first win came against the Steelers in week 2 and they’ll look to extend their current 2 game winning run and forge a positive 4-3 record tonight against the Bears.

Onto the Bears offence and put simply, they’re a really bad team. In a league full of terrible teams they maybe don’t look so bad but I think Bill Belichick's defence tonight will embarrass them. Mentioned earlier was the fact they’d only put up 363 yards vs the Texans relative to the 421.6 average the Houston outfit allowed. Even worse than this is the fact Fields only put up 82 passing yards against the Texans, whose secondary is led by rookie first roudner Derek Stingley & has been very poor. So poor in fact that the average passing yards they have allowed is 280.2- Fields threw for almost 200 yards under the average and didn’t even make 50% of his passes whilst throwing 2 picks. This has been a Field’s bashing article so far but in reality I do like him. His arm talent is top 5 in the league, on his feet he’s brilliant as well and he doesn’t have the best weapons around him. Moreover his offensive line is abysmal- he’s been pressured on 46% of dropbacks and sacked 23 times. Several major media outlets list them as the 32nd ranked offensive line and these sort of stats would support that. His time to throw of 3.02 seconds is the longest in the league and highlights his necessity to scramble in order to avoid the onslaught of pass rush. As such the offence has become very run focused, the combo of Fields, Montgomery and Herbert plus various others are averaging 170.8 YPG on the ground ranked 2nd, but even so they only put up 15.5 PPG (2nd lowest). Their inability to get first downs (93 all year- 29th ranked) is shocking and you really struggle to see where the players are that can change that. As suggested much is reliant on the running backs with their 5.2 yards per carry sitting top 10 in the league, helped by explosiveness with 7 runs going for over 20 yards ranking tied 5th. Montgomery has averaged almost 15 carries per game when healthy so his over of 13.5 (5/6) is one to make note of. Fields also has a line (7.5) slightly lower than his average (9) however the Bears may want to take the ball out of his hands due to his 4 fumbles. Herbert leads the backfield for yardage on account of a monster 128 yard game in Montgomery’s absence but he has been moved back to a secondary role since- another explanation as to why the Bears struggle is their poor coaching. In the passing game there’s no real standouts. Darnell Mooney has seen a steady uptick in targets but his 12 against the Commanders last week account for over a third of his targets all year (33). Passing props aren’t backable in my opinion.

The Pats D is the problem they will face and after Bellichek went on a 10 minute monologue about how brilliant the Bears are and the cynic inside me feels he has already drawn up the perfect game plan to shut them down. They allow only 18.8 points per game (7th best) with their pass D slightly better than their run D (14th compared to 17th) however their sacks rank 7th (17) and coming up against the most sacked QB in football I think those big boys up front will get to Fields and blitz him all night. The lack of passing options means the secondary can be emptied and linebackers will join the blitz in order to get to Fields or stuff the run. A key stat for the Pats this season is that in their 3 losses they allowed 150.6 rushing yards per game, yet in their 3 wins this number drops to 87.3. Belichick knows he has nothing to fear in Fields and so their entire game plan can be to stuff the run and stuff the Bears. Consequent to this I’d expect frustration from the Bears and they’ll likely be behind so Fields tossing up an interception is something I’ll be backing at 13/20. In bet builders it’s maybe worth chancing him on 2 interceptions considering he’s one of only 3 QBs to throw more interceptions than TDs so far this year (4 to 5). The Pats only allow 58.6% passing completion (6th best) and so given Fields' average sits at 54.8, the worst in the league, I don’t see an improvement really. Their 6 interceptions and 6 forced fumbles also spells trouble and I think it’s clear that in a battle of the Bears offence and Pats defence there’s only one winner.

Onto the other battle in this game and that’s the Patriots offence taking on the Bears relatively stout defence. I’ll break that down in one chunk as the stats intertwine so much. The Pats have opted to go back to 2021 first rounder Mac Jones after his injury despite rookie Bailley Zappe having led them to back to back victories and putting up a huge 301 yards and 2 TD performance against the Browns. Despite the clear limited sample size it is worth noting that in the 2 and a half games he’s played he has the highest passer rating of any QB this year at 111.4, clear of Mahomes and Allen who sit on 109.5 & 109.1. On the other hand Mac has a rating of 76.6 in his 3 and a half game boasting 2 TDs to 5 interceptions. Mac had been ticking along at just under 250 yards a game and he faces a Chicago pass D that is actually the 3rd best in the league allowing 178.7 YPG. Given the expected cold weather and the fact Bill won’t want fans turning on Mac and chanting for Zappe I’m expecting a run heavy scheme, something they already do brilliantly. They don’t rank quite as high as the Bears but their 131.3 rushing YPG accounts for 10th best in the league and with the return of Damien Harris expect them to surpass that total. Second year Rhamondre Stevenson has been putting up just under 75 yards per game and noticeably takes a lot of carries when the Pats are leading. Given I expect the Pats to be leading for a lot of this game I think he will blow away his line for rushing attempts which sits at 13.5. He’s cleared this in his last 3 and is clearly seeing an uptick in carries from 8 & 9 in the first 2 games of the season to 12, 14, 25 and 19. Removing those first two games he averages 17.5 carries hence I find value in his 13.5 line. These 87 carries have amounted to 448 yards at 5.1YPC but this Bears D only allow 4.8, however I think the persistence of the Pats run game will wear them down. Because of the fact the Bears have such a strong pass defence they’ve actually seen almost 34 rush attempts against them per game hence I think Stevenson and Harris will both clear their lines. In the receiving department Jakobi Meyers leads the team in targets and receptions and has done so in only 4 games. He boasts a catch rate of over 75% and averages 80.3 YPG, it’s worth noting that 171 of his 321 yards came with Zappe under centre. With Mac he was targeted far more though- 19 times across 2 games compared to just 12 with Zappe. His line of 4.5 receptions is tempting but if the Pats go as run heavy as I anticipate given the Bears impressive secondary then it’d be a worry. His over of 52.5 also falls into this same category of temptation. Safety Eddie Jackson will be covering any deep throws and with 3 picks in his 6 games I think it’d be wise for Mac to avoid those deep shots- the main beneficiary of those deep shots would be Devante Parker who has 12 catches on the year with 7 being for 20 yards or more. He’s a no bet for receptions but for yards his line of 28.5 looks serious value. Whilst Mac would be wise not to throw deep he’s shown he does love to stand and go deep so even if Parker only makes one catch he could well clear his over for yards.

Concluding Thoughts

For me I think this is the Pats game all over but as the Panthers showed yesterday anything can happen. The line is 8.5 and I think that’s backable but potentially slightly too big, it’s most likely that wide on account of the Bears scoring so few as opposed to the Pats scoring loads. I think under 39.5 is a given, three of the four Monday Night Football games have seen under 40 points and I think this will be the case again. The bookies have gone with the typical approach of setting the line at exactly what both teams average in terms of points per game. Bears 15.5 plus Pats 23.5 and so they give us 39.5, I’m taking it because I think they’ve been lazy and not accounted for the return of Jones (Pats put up 33.5 PPG without him compared to 17 PPG with him) or the fact the Bears are in such poor form. I’d typically take Fields on the under for passing however, as I predict the Pats will be far in front Fields will turn to his deep ball and potentially gain some garbage time yards. 21-10 to the Pats is a scoreline I could foresee priced at 150s or 24-10 at 125s but they’re 50p bets for interest at most. A betting market I’ve become fond of and landed a couple of winners with for yesterday’s 6PMs would be handicap & total points and I think that the Pats -6.5 and under 40.5 points at 2s looks really nice.

Tips

• Pats -6.5 and under 40.5 points @2/1

• Any single that’s individually priced in the article i.e. Stevenson over 13.5 carries etc.

• Stevenson (4/5) & Harris (6/4) both to score a TD @4/1

• Mac Jones 250+ pass yards, Meyers 80+ receiving and Stevenson 80+ rushing yards @18/1 Sky Request a Bet

• Both QBs over 0.5 interceptions, Stevenson 13.5+ rushing attempts, Herbert 30+ rush yards, Montgomery 50+ rush yards, Parker 25+ receiving yards, Mooney 2+ catches @32/1 Bet Victor 7 leg longshot Bet Builder.