That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the question burning in my brain after having considered the offensive stats of both teams, comparing Brees to Grossman and looking at both defenses. After careful consideration the lines have changed a bit with Chicago no only a 2 to 2.5-point favorite (the home field advantage is 3 points).Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something to consider– the forecast for the Windy City and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, well, windy.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Weather: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Overcast lowers\/thickens. Blustery SSE winds gust to 20-25 m.p.h. at times. Snow develops mid\/late a.m.; Accumulation possible. Bears\/Saints game wind chills: 10s.\u00e2\u20ac?<\/p>\n
The high is supposed to be 32 degrees and the low 25.<\/p>\n
The gusty wind could be a real problem. The fact is that Soldier Field is one of the worst places to try to kick a field goal, while the Louisiana Superdome, home of the Saints, is one of the best.<\/p>\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a stat for you. Bears\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 kicker Robbie Gould has hit about 92% of his kicks at home in the past 2 years, while visitors have connected only about 68% of the time.<\/p>\n
Bears\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 punter Brad Maynard has a low drop, which means there is less chance for the ball to change direction as it goes down and his foot meets the ball.<\/p>\n
Finally, the Bears are used to playing outside, along the waterfront, in the wind, cold and snow. All of those conditions will be present on Sunday.<\/p>\n
So, will Drew Brees feel the sting of the breeze on Sunday? How will Saints\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 place kicker John Carney do? He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hit 100% this year at home but only 86.7 on the road and when the temperature is under 40 degrees, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been good only 50% of the time. Outdoors he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s at 85.7%; indoors he has hit 100%.<\/p>\n
It came down to two field goals last week when the Bears played the Seahawks. Cold that be the deciding factor in this game?<\/p>\n
Technorati Tags: Robbie Gould<\/a>, John Carney<\/a>, Chicago Bears<\/a>, New Orleans Saints<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the question burning in my brain after having considered the offensive stats of both teams, comparing Brees to Grossman and looking at both defenses. After careful consideration the lines have changed a bit with Chicago no only a 2 to 2.5-point favorite (the home field advantage is 3 points).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nfl-handicapping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1207,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/1207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}