2. Chicago at New Orleans
LINE: New Orleans -10
ATS PICK: New Orleans
– Bet on this, BetMGM latest line
There’s a thought that the Bears might just be plucky enough to make this a fight.
After all, they pushed hard in a 26-23 overtime New Orleans win back in Week 8 in a strange game. And that was Chicago football for most of the year.
Bad, but it somehow managed to keep enough games close over the first half of the season to be a god against the spread. There’s still a decent defense, the running game went from the worst in the NFL to now among the best over the last six weeks coming off a bye, and …
New Orleans is almost fully loaded.
It had its parts at times, but now Michael Thomas is really supposed to be back, the running backs return from living in the COVID protocol world, and while Drew Brees still doesn’t quite seem 100% – that, or he’s just freaking old now – he’s as close to okay as he’s going to get.
This has been a weird, rough, inconsistent and disjointed run for the Saints over the second half of the season, and yet since that win over the Bears, six of its seven wins – it went 7-2 before this – were by double-digits.
Yeah, but Chicago’s great run?
Uh huh … it beat Houston, Minnesota, and Jacksonville. Let’s just stop playing nice-nice – the Bears had one, one-point win over Tampa Bay this season, and that’s really about it.
There have only been three double-digit losses this season. One was to the Rams in LA and two were against the Packers, but …
The Saints at home – for whatever that means – as a ticked off 2 seed that should really be kicking back and relaxing right now instead of playing in this new gimmicky format – should be good enough to make it four, even though you do hate giving up double-digit points in the NFL Playoffs.