TNF Betting: Panthers/Bears Best Bets

It’s Thursday Night Football, and it’s either this or Louisville as a three-TD favorite in the college ranks. No such thing as a bad game (we’ll test the limits of that tonight), but this one certainly isn’t on the same level as next week’s Bangerer. Either way, buckle up, week ten starts now with two rookies going at it on Primetime.

Market

Bears started as a smaller favorite, just -1.5 or 2 in the lookahead market, opened -2 on Sunday, and took some money for most of the early week. Tuesday morning steam took this all the way out to -4 and really had me wondering if I was wrong and Fields was going to be ready to go. The news that it will be Bagent again led to some Panthers action finally coming in, driving this back down to the -3.

Another reason I really was puzzled by the heavy Chicago money is that the total kept dropping even if were were looking at possibly seeing an upgrade at QB. Opening at 40.5, this has only gone one way, settled at 38.5 with some 38s showing as well.

Injuries

The biggest story outside of the Bears’ QB situation is on the defensive side of the ball for the Panthers.

Edge rusher Brian Burns and corner C.J. Henderson will both miss tonight’s game. On top of that both starting safeties are questionable. Xavier Woods and Vonn Bell did get limited practices in yesterday, but it’s still a short week. Losing either or both would be extremely tough for an already thin defense. LB Marquis Haynes is also questionable.

WR Laviska Shenault and TE Stephen Sullivan will also be inactive for Carolina tonight.

The Bears will be down one starter on both sides of the ball in addition to Fields missing yet another game. OL Nate Davis and linebacker Tremaine Edmunds have been ruled out. Fullback Khari Blasingame and CB Terell Smith are also out and if you want to get technical, QB Justin Fields is Doubtful.

RB Khalil Herbert, WR Equanimeous St. Brown, and CB Josh Blackwell are all questionable. It sounds like Herbert is sitting but the other two did get some practice in and should go.

Matchup

As was mentioned last night on the pod and by basically anyone talking Bears this week: the defense is starting to get healthy and showing some signs of life, especially against the run. A big part of that was just getting healthy. After going through the early part of the season missing pieces all over the defense, not only are they getting all their starters on the field, but they’ve added a pass rusher to the mix with the Sweat trade.

Carolina is dead last in the league with just 48 QB pressures. Brian Burns is responsible for 25% of those and will not play tonight. Already down Jaycee Horn and Justin Houston, this defense is bad enough and missing enough starters for the Bears to take advantage. I hate to keep making cases for the Bears but this is what we’re dealing with here: Even with Bagent under center, this is probably a good spot for Chicago to notch another win.

We haven’t seen a team that looks particularly well coached and outside of Adam Thielen, the offense hasn’t been doing a ton to help the young QB either. Obviously, a tie would be for the best, but either way, one of the Bears’ two first-round picks for next year will move one step closer to getting another first overall.

If pressed, I’d take the Bears -3 and the under, but both numbers are close enough to what I make fair so, I’ll just go piss some money away on props instead.

Betting

Kmet has gotten 18 targets over the past two weeks from Bagent, against a couple of different schemes. He seems to be becoming a favorite target and now gets a beat-up secondary to do it against. Yeah, it’s a D.J. Moore revenge game, but Kmet is finding himself open an awful lot. Would love to see him get 8 more targets tonight.

Cole Kmet over 4.5 receptions +134

Cole Kmet over 35.5 yards -115

Also, the Panthers are giving up rushing TDs at a pretty high clip. Unfortunately, the D’Onta Foreman ATTD price is like +110 and I don’t see Roschon getting enough carries to justify his price either (unless you can find him to score in the 2H or last TD). Instead, I’ll take Bagent to get one on the ground. He found his mobility a bit last week with 8 carries for 70 yards and did have a TD two weeks ago.

Tyson Bagent Anytime TD +410 (FD)

Good luck, have fun, sorry this game might stink and I’ll check back tomorrow with some thoughts for the weekend.