The Carolina Panthers head to Soldier Field for a game against the Chicago Bears this Sunday afternoon. The Panthers, led by rookie sensation Cam Newton, picked up their first win of the season last week, beating Jacksonville 16-10. The Bears have dropped two in a row, losing to the Saints and Packers in consecutive weeks.<\/p>\n
The Bears opened as a 6 \u00bd point home favorite. Betting has moved the line from anywhere between 6 and 7 points, depending upon the book. Carolina has been great against the spread this year, moving to 3-0 after last week. The Bears, on the other hand, are only 1-2 ats. That being so, consider grabbing a touchdown here and backing a young, inspired team looking for a signature road win.<\/p>\n
One storyline in this game is Carolina head coach Ron Rivera going back to Chicago. Rivera, the longtime Bears linebacker and member of the 1985 championship team, used to be defensive coordinator for Chicago. In fact, he oversaw the defense on the Bears\u2019 2006 team that made it to the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to downplay it,\u201d Rivera said. \u201cSome people would say it\u2019s just another game; no it\u2019s not. They\u2019re all big, but this has a little personal meaning for me because it\u2019s Chicago. It\u2019s a great city with a great organization \u2026 It\u2019ll be fun. I look forward to coming up there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Panthers have another former Bears player who could make a big difference in Sunday\u2019s game. Greg Olsen was traded from the Bears to the Panthers in the shortened offseason for a third round draft pick. Apparently Olsen was expendable because the Bears wanted a better blocking tight end. That should provide extra motivation for Olsen come game time.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s funny that the Bears were looking for better blocking because they certainly haven\u2019t found it. Chicago currently ranks 31st with 53.7 rushing yards a game and are tied for the most sacks allowed with 14. Last week against the Packers at home, Chicago mustered just 13 yards on 12 carries. Matt Forte, the game changing speedster, was bottled up all day and ended up with just 2 yards on 9 carries. The Bears expect guard Lance Louis to be available for Saturday\u2019s game, but tackle Gabe Carimi is out indefinitely. Additionally, Major Wright, Chris Harris, and Marion Barber are all expected to play for Chicago.<\/p>\n
The combination of Cam Newton to Steve Smith has been very productive for Carolina. Both Newton and Smith rank third in terms of yards for quarterbacks and receivers. Carolina could get a big boost if their running game became more relevant. Neither DeAngelo Williams nor Jonathan Stewart has gotten on track this season. Each back is tremendously talented, and I wonder if Newton\u2019s play has actually worked to diminish Carolina\u2019s ground game. At any rate, the Panthers need to do a better job of complimenting Newton and Smith with at least a serviceable rushing attack.<\/p>\n
This will be a telling game for both teams. Chicago started the season strong against Atlanta, but regressed against New Orleans and Green Bay. Part of the problem could be the Bears\u2019 competition \u2013 the Falcons, Saints, and Packers all made the playoffs last season. Carolina has outperformed expectations each week, and at this point I\u2019m not afraid to jump on their bandwagon, at least with respect to covering the spread. I\u2019m not saying they\u2019ll leave Chicago with a win (though it wouldn\u2019t surprise me). But I do think that between their effort and the Bears recent troubles, Carolina has an excellent chance of covering the spread. See if you can get 7 points at some online sportsbooks NFL odds. Good luck!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Carolina Panthers head to Soldier Field for a game against the Chicago Bears this Sunday afternoon. The Panthers, led by rookie sensation Cam Newton, picked up their first win of the season last week, beating Jacksonville 16-10. The Bears have dropped two in a row, losing to the Saints and Packers in consecutive weeks. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":5435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[279,359,1976,31,1772,2216],"class_list":["post-18189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-chicago-bears","tag-free-picks","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-betting","tag-nfl-football-picks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18189","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\/203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18189"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18231,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18189\/revisions\/18231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}