After a shambolic start to our first preview of the season, @BeefyLayd17 looks to bounce back. The 3-1 Buccs travel to the 3-1 Bears, who got found out on Sunday as predicted by myself on the Flea Flicker Betting Podcast. Lets deep dive into this game and find some great value bets! The line for this game started at Buccs -6 but has drifted down to -4.5 so the Bears have clearly been getting attention. Do I think this is right? Find out by reading below!
The Bears were the shock team of the league at 3-0 before coming into Sunday’s match with the Colts and were probably the only ever team to bench there starting QB when they are unbeaten. However, in came Foles and Mitch Trubisky dropped to the bench and the Bears rallied to score 20 4th quarter points to somehow win in Atlanta. Not to my surprise but every man and his dog were riding Foles and the Bears. My NAP of the week on the podcast was Colts -2.5 which landed easily as they won 19-11. The Bears offence, who ran the ball very well in the first 3 weeks against average/bad defenses, struggled this week against a good defense. In the first 3 weeks they ran for 440 at almost 5 YPC, against one of the leagues best defenses, they ran 16 times for 28 yards. It wont get any easier this week against the Buccs who are 2nd best D against the run, they allow 2.9 YPC and haven’t allowed a rushing TD in the last 2 weeks.
The Buccs defense is also T-3rd in Interceptions with 5 through 4 games, the leaders are the Colts with 7. According to Next Gen Stats, Nick Foles has 2.52s TTT (Time to Throw) per attempt which is 5th quickest in the league. He only got sacked 2 times on Sunday so he is avoiding the pressure by getting the ball out early to his receivers, his main receiver being Allen Robinson. In the first 2 games Robinson had 8 catches for 107 yards, since Foles has come in he has had 23 targets, 17 receptions, 224 yards and 2 TD’s. Another interesting stat per NGS is that 22.5% of Nick Foles’s throws are ‘aggressive’ (Aggressiveness is shown as a % of attempts into tight windows over all passing attempts) that % is 3rd highest in the league behind Ryan Fitzpatrick (23.2%) and Mitch Trubusky (31.4%). 2 of the Bears QB’s are in the top 3… The reason for this is because the WR’s are not getting separation. Allen Robinson and Anthony Miller average 2.2 yards ranking #84 and #86 respectively. The highest Bears receiver is rookie Darnell Mooney, he ranks #55 and averages 2.7 yards. The highest is Robert Tonyan (TE Packers) with 5.2! This is why so many of Foles’s throws are classed as aggressive.
The TB12 lead Buccs are coming off a very nice comeback win against the LA Chargers were they were down 2 TD’s in the 3rd and managed to win the game 38-31 after posting a shut out in the 4th. Brady himself threw for 5 TD’s and his star WR Mike Evans had 7 REC, 122 yards and a TD despite his noticeable knee injury. With Fournette out, Rojo also stepped up and had 128 scrimmage yards. This week the belief is that Fournette will be a game-time decision which means Rojo could heavily feature again if Fournette doesn’t play and even if he does play, depending on if the Buccs want to risk him or if they just want to ease him in. WR Chris Godwin is expected to miss this clash with a hamstring injury, the loss of OJ Howard means Cameron Brate will get more of a role in this offence with Gronk.
The TB12 lead Buccs are coming off a very nice comeback win against the LA Chargers were they were down 2 TD’s in the 3rd and managed to win the game 38-31 after posting a shut out in the 4th. Brady himself threw for 5 TD’s and his star WR Mike Evans had 7 REC, 122 yards and a TD despite his noticeable knee injury. With Fournette out, Rojo also stepped up and had 128 scrimmage yards. This week the belief is that Fournette will be a game-time decision which means Rojo could heavily feature again if Fournette doesn’t play and even if he does play, depending on if the Buccs want to risk him or if they just want to ease him in. WR Chris Godwin is expected to miss this clash with a hamstring injury, the loss of OJ Howard means Cameron Brate will get more of a role in this offence with Gronk.
The TB12 lead Buccs are coming off a very nice comeback win against the LA Chargers were they were down 2 TD’s in the 3rd and managed to win the game 38-31 after posting a shut out in the 4th. Brady himself threw for 5 TD’s and his star WR Mike Evans had 7 REC, 122 yards and a TD despite his noticeable knee injury. With Fournette out, Rojo also stepped up and had 128 scrimmage yards. This week the belief is that Fournette will be a game-time decision which means Rojo could heavily feature again if Fournette doesn’t play and even if he does play, depending on if the Buccs want to risk him or if they just want to ease him in. WR Chris Godwin is expected to miss this clash with a hamstring injury, the loss of OJ Howard means Cameron Brate will get more of a role in this offence with Gronk. Yesterday (Tuesday) Evans, Godwin, Miller and Watson all missed practice and Gronk was limited. The Buccs will have some interesting decisions to make come Thursday night.
The Best bet I have in this game is for the Bears WR Darnell Mooney to have over 2.5 receptions at all bookies. He played the 2nd most snaps at WR behind Allen Robinson on Sunday and had the Bears longest catch of 33 yards. He is welding into his job on the offence and could take over Anthony Miller as WR2. The fact that Tarik Cohen is also on IR means he could be the gadget player for HC Matt Nagy. He is 4/1 to score a TD at Bet365, around 3/1 and 5/2 in other places
The 2nd best bet I have is for Bears QB Nick Foles to have over 36.5 pass attempts, he had 42 last week and had 29 in 2 quarters against the Falcons. If the game flow tends to head to the Buccs he will have to throw like he did on Sunday and I can see this bet landing. I was close to tipping the longest pass completion under 37.5 yards, I will have a dabble on this but will not tip it.
After a 0-4 start I really hope we can bounce back with a 2-0 here.
Thanks for reading and Good Luck
Article Written By Jack Wilson
Flea Flicker Betting 
The Mooney bet sounds good but not at 8/15??
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Ah, was 4/6 earlier, clearly been hammered. I would still back as the stats show that he will get at least 3 imo, you can back 4+ at 2.10 @ Pokerstars and 5+ at 4.10 also at Pokerstars mate.
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