Every week of the football season experts make their picks on the games to come. Sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re wrong, but they will almost always be picking again the following week.
However, it’s not the experts on TV that depend on being right, those picks come out of Las Vegas.
Unsurprisingly, the Vegas bookmakers have the Packers as the favorites heading into Sunday. However, the point spread isn’t as drastic as could be expected.
Most books have the line at either six and a half or seven points. Considering the expectations for both teams, a one score game would seem to be a surprise.
Trying to explain the point spread is a little more difficult. The Packers have historically struggled to beat the spread early in the season, 1-5 against the spread over their last six September road games.
However, they have beaten the Bears in nine of their last 10 meetings. As SB Nation notes, the Bears haven’t exactly excelled against the spread either, going 2-5 over their last seven home games against division rivals.
While a seasoned betting veteran may caution this game is a sucker bet and too good to be true, it’s difficult to find a reason why the Packers won’t cover the touchdown spread.
For those insistent on betting the game, but want to avoid the spread, the point total has hovered between 49 and 51 points, depending on the book.
