MONDAY night football arrives from Chicago and we asked Tom Selwyn (@Tom_Selwyn) deliver his best bets.
Minnesota Vikings @ Chicago Bears | Tuesday 00:30 | Sky Sports 1
So somehow we’ve ended up with Chicago in a primetime game again! Even with QB Jay Cutler returning for this game, we know what the Bears are about by this point and they just aren’t a very good team.
However, given Minnesota’s performance last week I can’t back them to the cover the spread with confidence at this point.
Instead, I’m going to be looking at a player bet with Vikings WR Adam Thielen. He has emerged as one of QB Sam Bradford’s top targets this season and I’m going to back him to go Over 39.5 Receiving Yards in this game (5/6 Paddy Power).
There are a number of reasons I feel this is a good bet. Firstly, from a Vikings point of view, Thielen has the second most yards on the team with 324 yards over the Vikings’ six games, which is an average of 54 per-game. Even with Minnesota’s protection issues, he’s still getting his yards and targets.
Then on the Chicago side of things, they are near the bottom of the charts when it comes to defending WRs. They have allowed the most receptions to WRs (120) and have also allowed the second most yards to WRs (1,408).
A lot of this yardage comes via the second and third WRs too and this was highly evident in the Bears last game against the Packers – they kept Green Bay’s #1 WR Jordy Nelson to one catch for nine yards, but allowed 293 yards to the trio of Davante Adams, Randall Cobb and Ty Montgomery.
Minnesota have not been good at protecting Bradford this season, but Chicago doesn’t possess the same calibre of pass rush that Philadelphia does. He should have more time to exploit the Bears’ weakness against WRs and I expect Thielen to be involved often.
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Minnesota Vikings @ Chicago Bears – Adam Thielen to have Over 39.5 Receiving Yards (5/6 Paddy Power)
