Minnesota vs Chicago NFL Football Spread/Handicapping
Minnesota is on the road for yet another divisional game. Last week they lost at Detroit and a loss this week would be especially damaging because it would drop them to 0-2 and two games behind at least Chicago in the NFC North.
Minnesota Vikings (0-1) vs. Chicago Bears (1-0)
Sunday September 15
Soldier Field – Chicago, IL
1:00PM
Moneyline: Chicago -240, Minnesota +200
Spread: Chicago -5.5
O/U: 42
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On the other hand Chicago was very solid in beating a good Cincinnati team in their opener (a game it looked like they would lose through most of). They are at home again and looking to get back to winning against Minnesota, a team they had beaten 6 times in a row before losing to them down the stretch of last season as part of their collapse.
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Its early in the season but revenge is revenge especially for these teams which have a lot of the same core players.
Minnesota
Minnesota has to rebound from last week’s loss to Detroit in a hurry. The game was kind of an epic fail all the way around with the defense giving up 34 points, QB Christian Ponder throwing three interceptions and even though RB Adrian Peterson rushed for 98 yards, 78 of those came on one play which means the Lions really shut him down other than that.
Last year when they beat the Bears it was like a lot of victories for Minnesota in the sense that they ran Peterson to the tune of 150+ yards and hoped for the best.
Ponder was a non factor and the defense was just OK. [soliloquy id=”82219″]
That is the kind of thing that might work at home but on the road they are going to need Ponder to help win the game not just avoid losing it. The brightest spot from last week was WR Jerome Simpson who caught balls for 140 yards. Nobody else topped 33 though making it pretty obvious who the defense was concerned about.
Chicago
The Bengals beating the Bears was an upset I was sure of coming into Sunday so kudos to Chicago for proving me wrong. In watching the game they didn’t do anything all that special. They ran the ball a bit, threw the ball the WR Brandon Marshall and caused some turnovers.
In fact it looked so familiar you wouldn’t even have noticed a new coach on the sidelines.
That might be a problem for the Bears at some point but probably not yet against a very familiar opponent that they have beaten up over the years. As much as any team the Bears know how to beat the Vikings – contain Peterson and make Ponder work to beat you.
It worked at home last year when they bottled him up for just over 100 yards forcing Ponder to throw more than 40 times.
When that happens Minnesota is not going to be very successful, especially against a team like the Bears which is so good at forcing turnovers.
Spread Pick: Chicago -5.5
O/U Pick: Under
Score Prediction: Chicago 24 – Minnesota 14
