Vikings vs. Bears NFL Week 18 Betting Picks & Prediction: Bears to Run Over Vikings
Minnesota Vikings vs. Chicago Bears
Sunday, January 8, 2023 at 1 p.m. ET at Soldier Field in Chicago
Best Bet: Bears +3.5 at +100 with BetOnline
Expect Viking Starters to Play
Minnesota has incentive to win this game.
Therefore, one may expect Viking starters to play.
Their incentive is that they may obtain the 2 seed if they win and if San Francisco loses.
San Francisco does not play until 4:25 p.m. ET, so the Vikings will not be able to find out the result of San Francisco's game until after their game ends.
Given these circumstances, we should handicap this game by analyzing how each team's healthy and active starters match up against each other.
The Odds
As of Tuesday morning, Minnesota is favored by 3.5 points.
In view of Minnesota's attractive-looking straight-up record and Chicago's miserable one, this spread might seem very modest.
But let's review the Vikings' road games up to this point.
They've played six road games. In five of them, they either failed to win altogether or they failed to win by more than three points.
Those five road opponents were: the Packers, Lions, Bills, Commanders, and Eagles.
They were blown out by the Eagles and Packers, and they lost by 11 in Detroit.
In the one exception, they beat a pre-Jeff Wilson and Bradley Chubb Dolphin team that was led by its backup quarterback by eight.
Tellingly, that Dolphin team actually outgained Minnesota 458 yards to 234 yards.
So, this one game is not in any essential sense an exception, because it maintains the impression that Minnesota is rather unreliable on the road and is indeed a much worse team in general than its straight-up record suggests.
While one may insist that the Bears are a miserable team, they were much more competitive against the Eagles, Lions, and Packers when they got to face each team at home than when the Vikings faced them on the road.
Under the right circumstances, Chicago can be highly competitive at home even against elite teams.
Does Sunday's game between the Bears and Vikings feature the right circumstances?
I argue that it does because of some timing-related circumstances and because of match-up-related circumstances.
Cold-Weather Game
By "timing-related circumstances," I refer to the fact that this game takes place in December.
While Minnesota is obviously located in the North, this fact is meaningless because the Vikings' home stadium is a dome.
They do not typically get to play in a frigid environment, whereas Bear players are used to the cold.
Per the weather forecast for Chicago, Sunday will be in the 30s plus whatever wind.
Cold-Weather Kirk
In particular, Viking quarterback Kirk Cousins is unreliable in cold-weather games.
Last week, Cousins played in Green Bay.
In that game, despite late-game garbage-time stat-improving, his passer rating was 49.2.
So, he suffered his worst performance of the season.
A season ago, Minnesota played in Chicago in December.
Cousins, in that game, completed half of his passes for all of 87 yards, by far his least productive outing of that season.
Back in 2017, Cousins yielded a 31.1 passer rating in Minnesota's 18-10 loss on the road against the Giants.
Minnesota failed to exceed 17 points in any of these games, suggesting that the Viking team total "under" is going to be a great bet when your sportsbook releases it.
I also like the Bears ATS partly because Minnesota, led by Cousins in the cold, cannot be expected to score nearly enough points to cover the spread.
The Vikings allowed fewer than 16 points in a single game all season -- that was the season-opener against Green Bay, and season-openers have become characteristically awful for Aaron Rodgers.
Should we expect a similarly awful performance from Chicago's offense on Sunday?
Justin Fields' Rushing Outlook
Minnesota's defense suffers a negative outlook in part because of its vulnerability to mobile quarterbacks.
Bill quarterback Josh Allen, for example, achieved his second-highest rushing output of the season against the Vikings.
More recently, Giant quarterback Daniel Jones achieved 8.5 YPC against Minnesota.
Now, Jones only ran for 34 yards, but he only attempted four rushes. Jones was too busy passing -- he achieved his second-highest passing yardage output of the season.
Justin Fields, the Passer
Fields' passing stats were certainly atrocious last week in Detroit.
But Detroit's passing defense has been superb since the firing of its defensive backs coach.
Josh Allen, for example, averages a 96.1 passer rating on the season but yielded an 80.8 passer rating against the Lions.
Don't forget that Fields averages 150 passing yards per game and converts 60 percent of his passes.
While these passing stats are far from impressive, they exceed what is necessary for his team to reach 20 points.
Ranking second-to-last, Minnesota's pass defense is one against which Fields will have one of his best passing performances of the season.
Khalil Herbert's Outlook
Plus, Khalil Herbert is back.
Last week, the Bears' top running back averaged 6.2 YPC.
But he ran five times because his team was so far behind Detroit.
Behind an offensive line that ranks fifth in run bock win rate, Herbert is averaging 5.7 YPC on the season.
Herbert will build on his success, against a Viking run defense that ranks 20th and, in its past three games, is allowing an average of 30 rush yards more than its season average.
The Verdict
I calculate that, in the worst of circumstances, Chicago will win 20-17.
It is likelier, though, that the Bears win by more points.
We can take the free points for a really good bet.
In addition to betting the Bears ATS, watch out for your sportsbook to release the Vikings team total so that you can also play the Vikings team total under.
Minnesota Vikings vs. Chicago Bears
Sunday, January 8, 2023 at 1 p.m. ET at Soldier Field in Chicago
Best Bet: Bears +3.5 at +100 with BetOnline
Expect Viking Starters to Play
Minnesota has incentive to win this game.
Therefore, one may expect Viking starters to play.
Their incentive is that they may obtain the 2 seed if they win and if San Francisco loses.
San Francisco does not play until 4:25 p.m. ET, so the Vikings will not be able to find out the result of San Francisco's game until after their game ends.
Given these circumstances, we should handicap this game by analyzing how each team's healthy and active starters match up against each other.
The Odds
As of Tuesday morning, Minnesota is favored by 3.5 points.
In view of Minnesota's attractive-looking straight-up record and Chicago's miserable one, this spread might seem very modest.
But let's review the Vikings' road games up to this point.
They've played six road games. In five of them, they either failed to win altogether or they failed to win by more than three points.
Those five road opponents were: the Packers, Lions, Bills, Commanders, and Eagles.
They were blown out by the Eagles and Packers, and they lost by 11 in Detroit.
In the one exception, they beat a pre-Jeff Wilson and Bradley Chubb Dolphin team that was led by its backup quarterback by eight.
Tellingly, that Dolphin team actually outgained Minnesota 458 yards to 234 yards.
So, this one game is not in any essential sense an exception, because it maintains the impression that Minnesota is rather unreliable on the road and is indeed a much worse team in general than its straight-up record suggests.
While one may insist that the Bears are a miserable team, they were much more competitive against the Eagles, Lions, and Packers when they got to face each team at home than when the Vikings faced them on the road.
Under the right circumstances, Chicago can be highly competitive at home even against elite teams.
Does Sunday's game between the Bears and Vikings feature the right circumstances?
I argue that it does because of some timing-related circumstances and because of match-up-related circumstances.
Cold-Weather Game
By "timing-related circumstances," I refer to the fact that this game takes place in December.
While Minnesota is obviously located in the North, this fact is meaningless because the Vikings' home stadium is a dome.
They do not typically get to play in a frigid environment, whereas Bear players are used to the cold.
Per the weather forecast for Chicago, Sunday will be in the 30s plus whatever wind.
Cold-Weather Kirk
In particular, Viking quarterback Kirk Cousins is unreliable in cold-weather games.
Last week, Cousins played in Green Bay.
In that game, despite late-game garbage-time stat-improving, his passer rating was 49.2.
So, he suffered his worst performance of the season.
A season ago, Minnesota played in Chicago in December.
Cousins, in that game, completed half of his passes for all of 87 yards, by far his least productive outing of that season.
Back in 2017, Cousins yielded a 31.1 passer rating in Minnesota's 18-10 loss on the road against the Giants.
Minnesota failed to exceed 17 points in any of these games, suggesting that the Viking team total "under" is going to be a great bet when your sportsbook releases it.
I also like the Bears ATS partly because Minnesota, led by Cousins in the cold, cannot be expected to score nearly enough points to cover the spread.
The Vikings allowed fewer than 16 points in a single game all season -- that was the season-opener against Green Bay, and season-openers have become characteristically awful for Aaron Rodgers.
Should we expect a similarly awful performance from Chicago's offense on Sunday?
Justin Fields' Rushing Outlook
Minnesota's defense suffers a negative outlook in part because of its vulnerability to mobile quarterbacks.
Bill quarterback Josh Allen, for example, achieved his second-highest rushing output of the season against the Vikings.
More recently, Giant quarterback Daniel Jones achieved 8.5 YPC against Minnesota.
Now, Jones only ran for 34 yards, but he only attempted four rushes. Jones was too busy passing -- he achieved his second-highest passing yardage output of the season.
Justin Fields, the Passer
Fields' passing stats were certainly atrocious last week in Detroit.
But Detroit's passing defense has been superb since the firing of its defensive backs coach.
Josh Allen, for example, averages a 96.1 passer rating on the season but yielded an 80.8 passer rating against the Lions.
Don't forget that Fields averages 150 passing yards per game and converts 60 percent of his passes.
While these passing stats are far from impressive, they exceed what is necessary for his team to reach 20 points.
Ranking second-to-last, Minnesota's pass defense is one against which Fields will have one of his best passing performances of the season.
Khalil Herbert's Outlook
Plus, Khalil Herbert is back.
Last week, the Bears' top running back averaged 6.2 YPC.
But he ran five times because his team was so far behind Detroit.
Behind an offensive line that ranks fifth in run bock win rate, Herbert is averaging 5.7 YPC on the season.
Herbert will build on his success, against a Viking run defense that ranks 20th and, in its past three games, is allowing an average of 30 rush yards more than its season average.
The Verdict
I calculate that, in the worst of circumstances, Chicago will win 20-17.
It is likelier, though, that the Bears win by more points.
We can take the free points for a really good bet.
In addition to betting the Bears ATS, watch out for your sportsbook to release the Vikings team total so that you can also play the Vikings team total under.
