{"id":20736,"date":"2011-12-31T16:21:05","date_gmt":"2011-12-31T21:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20736"},"modified":"2011-12-31T16:21:05","modified_gmt":"2011-12-31T21:21:05","slug":"nfl-picks-week-17-bears-looking-to-end-five-game-skid-at-minnesota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nfl-picks-week-17-bears-looking-to-end-five-game-skid-at-minnesota-20736\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Picks Week 17: Bears looking to end five-game skid at Minnesota"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chicago Bears at Minnesota Vikings
\nSunday, 1\/1\/12, 1:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 FOX
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Chicago -1
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Minnesota -1.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 39
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 41
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Bears
Jared Allen and the Vikings hope to hand the Bears a sixth straight loss on Sunday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Chicago Bears will try to end a five-game losing streak and beat the Minnesota Vikings for a fifth straight time when the NFC North rivals square off at the Metrodome in Sunday\u2019s season finale.\u00a0 The Bears (7-8) will also be looking to avoid a losing season one year after winning the division title while the Vikings (3-12) begin life without star running back Adrian Peterson, who suffered a torn ACL and MCL in his left knee last Saturday in a 33-26 victory at Washington.<\/p>\n

Minnesota (-1.5, O\/U 41) will likely be without Peterson at the start of next season as well, but rookie quarterback Christian Ponder is expected to be under center after he passed concussion tests during the week.\u00a0 Ponder was forced to leave last week\u2019s win over the Redskins, paving the way for Joe Webb\u2019s game-winning heroics.\u00a0 Webb threw two touchdown passes and ran for another in the second half after relieving Ponder.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the positive development of both young quarterbacks for the Vikings enabled them to eventually waive veteran Donovan McNabb, who started the last meeting against Chicago in Week 6.\u00a0 The Bears routed Minnesota 39-10 to begin a five-game winning streak, with McNabb getting benched in favor of Ponder, who has started every game since then.<\/p>\n

Chicago\u2019s season was derailed when QB Jay Cutler fractured the thumb on his throwing hand in a 31-20 home win against San Diego in Week 11.\u00a0 Cutler and running back Matt Forte (knee) were both placed on injured reserve earlier this week, and their team has not won a game without them.\u00a0 Forte sprained the MCL in his right knee in a 10-3 home loss to Kansas City in Week 13.<\/p>\n

Josh McCown took over as the Bears starter at QB for the ineffective Caleb Hanie last Sunday in a 35-21 loss at Green Bay and played fairly well, throwing for 242 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions.\u00a0 McCown started an NFL game for the first time since 2007 after Hanie threw nine interceptions in losing all four of his starts.<\/p>\n

Kahlil Bell also took advantage of his increased playing time without Forte and Marion Barber in the lineup at RB, totaling a career-high 121 yards on the ground.\u00a0 Bell, a third-year player out of UCLA, has revenge on his mind against the Vikings, who he played for as a rookie in 2009 before he was cut and signed by Chicago.<\/p>\n

The Bears are 1-4 against the spread during their skid and have seen the total go OVER in their past two.\u00a0 The OVER has cashed in each of the last four games for the Vikings along with eight of 10.\u00a0 The OVER is also 8-3-1 in the past 12 meetings between the teams.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NFL handicappers<\/a> at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chicago Bears at Minnesota Vikings Sunday, 1\/1\/12, 1:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 FOX Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Chicago -1 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Minnesota -1.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 39 Current Total:\u00a0 41 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker The Chicago Bears will try to end a five-game losing streak and beat the Minnesota Vikings for a fifth straight time when the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":4157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[359,73,2589,1772,1930,1922,2757,6283],"class_list":["post-20736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-chicago-bears","tag-minnesota-vikings","tag-nfc-north","tag-nfl-betting","tag-nfl-odds","tag-nfl-picks","tag-pro-football","tag-week-17"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20736","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\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20736"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20737,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20736\/revisions\/20737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}