Chicago Bears (1-1) at New York Jets (1-1)

The Jets are 2.5 point favorites here, but the public is still all over the Bears, suggesting that most people think the Bears are going to pull the upset. Usually when the majority of people think there will be an upset, it doesn’t happen. There’s a reason why the Jets are favorites here. I don’t think they’re a very good team, but the Bears aren’t much better. The Jets went 8-8 last season, but that was not indicative of how bad of a team they were. They went 5-1 in games decided by a touchdown or less and had a points differential of -97 (7th worst in the NFL) and 5.4 Pythagorean wins. They finished the season 25th in rate of moving the chains differential and 24th in DVOA. They were essentially a 5-11 team that managed to win 8 games.

The Bears also won 8 games last season and were also one of my picks to regress.  The Bears had a great offense last season, but they also had a defense that was worse than their offense was good. This season, I expected their offense to be worse without their defense being much better. The Bears moved the chains at a 75.68% rate last season, 4th in the NFL, but they were only in the mid 73s in games that Jay Cutler started as a lot of their offensive dominance game in games started by Josh McCown. I still think they’ll be a good offense, but they’ll finish somewhere in the 8-12 range rather than 4th.

I don’t expect this team to move the chains at a 75.68% rate again or even close within 2% points of that, even if Jay Cutler plays all 16 games. And if he doesn’t, they’re going to be in a lot of trouble because McCown is gone, now starting in Tampa Bay. On top of that, they should have more injuries on offense than last season as the games Cutler missed, which actually made them better, were their only real games lost to injuries offensively. They have minimal depth and now starting offensive linemen Roberto Garza and Matt Slauson are going to miss time with injury. Alshon Jeffery and Brandon Marshall, meanwhile, are significantly less than 100%. I think this line should be at 3, suggesting these two teams are even, so we’re getting a small amount of line value by fading the public. I’m not confident though.

New York Jets 19 Chicago Bears 16

Pick against spread: NY Jets -2.5

Confidence: None

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