Bears - Saints and Thurs Night Stats

[GFootsXtreme]

I'm a stats guy and also am in Chicago so that's my MO here.

Unquestionably NO is a better team overall like it or not but that is an opinion, not a stat. My personal feeling is that the Bears defense is pathetic and the only reason you see any numbers that look good about their D is because they played a few cupcakes lately.

Thursday night games:
My calcs are rough and I don't honestly care what the exact numbers are but one consideration we all have is what does the short rest do to the teams? My expectation would be the 2nd halves go over because defenses are tired...am I right?

If my calcs are even close to right I see 30.5 pts on average scored in the 1st half and 21 in the 2nd for all Thurs night games. That includes 3 easy blowouts on T-giving. So the first thought I have is that 1st half over may be a good play. My theory on 2nd halves doesn't seem to play out as expected.

What about the games? I believe all but one went over, and flew over for the most part. So over for the game has an angle also.

By my calcs in the last 5 games NO has had an average 1st half total of 27.4 and 29.6 in the 2nd half. Bears games L5 23.6 1st half, 15.6 2nd half. Put together the halves and you see an average of roughly 28 1st half and 19 2nd half.

Break down the Bears against a 23 1st half total and you'll see them go 3 wins, 1 loss and 2 ties. The Saints I see 2 wins, 2 losses and a tie against a 23 total. So although the Thurs trend is strong and the 1st half looks promising, I pass as the teams haven't passed this bar in their last games.

To see reality you have to go beyond the basic stats. how many points do the saints give up to teams that aren't pathetic? let's see...only SF and oakland were held to under 20 points. are the bears better than these teams? no doubt

then if you take out KC and TB (who tend to play a defensive game) you are left with 8 games in which the saints gave up 25 or more.

offensively the saints were stuffed by carolina...and if you think the bears D is as good as the carolina D i've got some tickets to sell you....besides that however, 20 or more points in every single game they play against anybody.

Realistically speaking then, imo, the Saints are going to give up at least 20 points, and score at least 25, making a MINIMUM total score 45.

Bears. 4 times this year their D has played well...against SF , Jax , Detroit and Indy to start the season (when manning was not healthy). take away just those games and suddenly you have a team that doesn't give up less than 20 points a game. On offense, the bears failed to score 20 only a few times -- at Gb, at carolina, at Minnesota and against Tennessee (with a hurt Orton). Take away those games (away games ecept Tenn) and you have a Bears team scoring about 24 on average and giving up at least 20, giving you a minimum of 44 points total.

averages:
overall these teams score 56 and give up 44, h/a 49 for, 52 against, L3 54 for, 41 against, L3h/a 45-44

In conclusion, the Bears are too suspect an offense to be a solid bet today, and the Saints play so poorly away from home that although value should be there it isn't.

Thursday night games tend to go over but not for the reason I suspected. Likewise, these teams against quality competition (defined as anybody but the bottom teams) both score and give up enough to justify a play on the game O.

My play today, after that longwinded ball of hype:

1* Bears O45.5 (line available at the time of my wager)
I would play it probably up to any number under 48

[skins-win-supbwl]

gl gfoots