Two promising starts have gone sideways for the Chicago Bears and Tennessee Titans, as both winning teams are suddenly on the wrong end of two-game losing streaks.
Sunday’s matchup in Nashville is strength-on-strength and weakness-vs-weakness — with the No. 4 offense for the Titans by Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) taking on the No. 6 defense from the Bears, while Chicago’s poor offense (27th in DVOA) takes on the Titans’ mediocre D (20th in DVOA).
The Titans are bottom five in the league at generating pass-rush pressure, which plays to the strength of Nick Foles. Foles thrives with time to throw (20-of-28 for 187 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions with a clean pocket against the Saints) and likely will continue his success in this game.
The Titans are too good offensively to be stifled two weeks in a row, but the pass rush created by the Bears’ dynamic defensive line is reminiscent of the Steelers unit that gave Ryan Tannehill fits just two weeks ago and should help keep the Bears live in this game.
A fair spread is + 4 by my numbers, so the Bears are a decent play at this price.
The play: Bears, +6.5.
Bonus play: These Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons are two under-performing teams on the season, each of which is coming off a hard-fought comeback divisional win in Week 8.
The Falcons have extra rest and the Broncos leave home for the first time in three weeks, but weather will not be a factor, as this is inside a dome and these two teams lack familiarity preparing/playing against each other across conference.
In a neutral-game state, both defenses are conceding worse than league average EPA per play — with the Broncos defense ranking 17th at 0.053 expected points per play and the Falcons ranking 21st (.102) — so it is surprising to see a total that is below the league average considering the situation. My numbers make a fair total 52 in the dome and Over 49.5 is worth backing in a game that has the potential to be a back-and-forth scoring affair. The play: Broncos-Falcons Over 49.5.