Best Bets: Bears vs. Colts, spread, total, survivor picks and more

Last week Jeff went a perfect 3-0, nailing the Bears spread, the over and his survivor pick of the Colts.

Sam, on the other hand, hit the Bears +3 and the Colts in the survivor pool but whiffed big time on the total, which he thought would stay under 47.5. Oh how he underestimated the offense.

The survivor pool saw the first group of people get dropped: those lazy people that signed up and never entered a single pick. We say good bye to you! But WhiskeyRanger and TJGOBIG and My Agreeable Picks all took a strike, on Jacksonville, the Chargers and Arizona, respectively.

Over in the Pick ‘Ems contest, there’s a five-way tie at the top with 30 points each among WhiskeyRanger, MCMLXXXV, Assy McGee, Cooler’s Picks and Little G. Whiskey was the week’s high scorer, so a tip of the hat his way.

Sam is down in ninth with 27 points, while Jeff is in 11th with 26, Lester just behind with 24 and Opinion Bear with 23 points down in 18th.

Now, let’s turn our sights on Sunday’s game and the line.

Bears vs Colts (-2.5, O/U 43)

Sunday, noon CT, CBS

Sam: The Colts are going to be a big test for the Bears. Sure, the Colts schedule has been as dismal as the Bears but they have a loss, but the Colts are a complete team with a strong defense, something the Bears haven’t seen yet.

But this doesn’t look to be a game to spot the opponent a big lead, because I’m not sure they’ll be able to crawl back out of it, even with a new QB.

It’s worth noting that the Bears are 2-2 as home dogs under Matt Nagy, so not a ton of data to back up bettors on either side of the line.

With that said, I am actually going to take the Colts. This is more of a gut feel than anything, I don’t doubt that the Bears can make it a game, and I think it will be close, but that hook is dangerous and I think it could easily end up being a three point game.

To me it comes down to this: Do you trust Nick Foles enough against a top flight defense to run the offense and put up points? I’m not there yet.

This is going to be a defensive struggle, I think 20-23 points wins it, I’ll ride the under and hope it’s 20-17 and not 24-20.

In the survivor league, I’m going Rams. It’s the easy choice, the chump choice, but I already have a strike, so mission: pick against New York teams continues.

Picks: Colts -2.5, under 43, Rams (survivor)

Jeff: Call me crazy, but I just can’t get the five TD throws from Nick Foles out of my head from last week. Yeah, I know only three of them stood and the other two were overturned but folks, he threw five TD passes in less than a half. I know the Colts defense is an actual professional defense and not the Falcons, but I’m optimistic about what the Bears can do with a signal caller like Foles under center. I believe Nagy has done an excellent job as head coach of this team since taking over and he now has a QB that I believe can run his offense the way he envisions it. For that reason, I believe the lines are going to take a week or two to catch up to reality and we’re going to see the Bears surprise some people this weekend. CHI +2.5

As for the over/under, I don’t have a good sense of expected gameflow right now, but I mainly believe that the Bears defense might just be rounding into form. Because of that, I’m not going to overthink it and I’m just going to roll with the under this week. (Under 43)

As for Survivor, I’ve come away clean in the month of September despite having to sweat a couple out. This week, I’m going to roll with one of the big favorites in the Rams taking on the Giants. I’ve been pretty vocal about my cynicism around the teams from New Jersey this year and it makes it easy to bet against them. I was wrong about the Rams, I fully admit that. I think they roll easy at home against the GMen this week.

JB: CHI +2.5, Under 43, Rams (Survivor)