2005 Chicago Bears NFL Handicapping Review

 

By Tom Wilkinson

 

There were not much in the way of sports handicapping expectations for the 2004 Chicago Bears and new head coach Lovie Smith and not much was delivered as the Bears were plagued by inconsistency and dreadful to outright incompetent quarterbacking after starter Rex Grossman suffered a season ending injury in week three.

After losing the opener as a 2-point home chalk to Detroit, the general sports betting public was quick to write off the Bears from their list of candidates as football picks. In fact, in the Bears next game at Green Bay, they encountered considerable sports handicapping opposition. But those members of the sports handicapping community that did a little digging realized that Smith made beating Green Bay a TOP priority of his regime the day he took over as Bears coach. Chicago was pointing towards this game in Green Bay, even if many sports betting players failed to pay attention to this publicized fact. Chicago stunned Green Bay and a lot of sports betting players by winning 21-10 as 8.5-point dogs. Online sports betting blogs were full of the posts of shocked Packer backers that night.

Chicago showed well in their next game, losing 22-27 as an eleven-point dog at Minnesota, cashing in for those who included the Bears on their list of football picks. This set up a minor burn for those members of the sports handicapping fraternity who began to believe in the Bears again as Chicago lost three consecutive games both straight up and against the sports betting odds to stand at 1-5 straight up and 2-4 against the sports betting line.

Once again many sports betting players wrote Chicago off at this point but the Bears rallied to win three straight games both straight up and against the sports betting odds. Once again there was a mildly favorable reaction from some in the sports handicapping community that praised Smith for his motivation skills.

Unfortunately the Bears, like a volatile stock, came back down and failed to beat the sports betting odds in five of their final seven games. Chicago was proven to be overvalued as a favorite as they were just 1-4 against the sports betting odds in that role for 2004, as well as a disturbing 2-6 against the sports betting line as a host. The best sports handicapping lesson one can gain from the 2004 Bears is that it is quite dangerous to lay points on a team that lacks a quarterback. It’s a lethal combination for football picks.