Dog-gone? To oddsmakers, Bears never favorites
If you think Las Vegas oddsmakers hold the Chicago Bears in low esteem, you are correct.
And it might not end anytime soon.
“I was talking to a guy who works here, and we were basically looking for a team we think is the equal of the Bears and we both agreed on the same team,” said Ed Salmons, vice president of risk management at Las Vegas’ Westgate SuperBook, one of the nation’s leading sports books. “It’s Detroit. Obviously they have different records. In our opinion, they are power rated identically.”
Oof.
The Bears (4-1) opened as a 3-point underdog for their game Sunday against the Carolina Panthers (3-2) at Bank of America Stadium. The Panthers have won three straight since losing running back Christian McCaffrey to a high right ankle sprain, and the Panthers and Bears are the only teams in the league to win three games as an underdog this season. The only game in which the Bears were favored was the Week 2 win over the New York Giants at Soldier Field. They went off as 4½-point favorites and won 17-13.
Oddsmakers set lines with the goal to attract even money on each side, which ensures a profit for the house on every game with 10% vigorish, or juice. Popular public teams are ones with high-powered scoring machines.The Bears don’t fall in that category and haven’t for a long time.
Coach Matt Nagy isn’t the only guy who’s not in love with the Bears offense. For Nagy, it’s the “freakin’ details.” For Salmons, it’s everything.
“It’s been like this forever,” Salmons said. “The Bears seemingly are the same team. They can’t run the ball. They really don’t have a lot of playmakers. They’ve got Allen Robinson and a bunch of guys. Jimmy Graham is like a statue out there. The ball has to get stuck to him for him to catch it. The
Bears are honestly one of the easiest teams to make a number on because it doesn’t matter who plays quarterback. It’s the same thing.
“It’s not that we don’t respect the Bears. This is our opinion of the Bears. We think the Bears are the Lions. If they can prove us wrong, that will change.”
Not surprisingly, Bears players have relished the underdog role for years. It provides a chip on their shoulders, imaginary or otherwise. Professional athletes constantly are seeking motivation from external sources, and no doubt comparisons to the down-and-out Lions could be bulletin-board material that is emphasized with a highlighter.
“At the end of the day our objective is just to win gamesno matter how we get it done,” outside linebacker Robert Quinn said. “If the score is 100-99 or 0-2, as long as we’re on the winning side, people can say what they want, we won the game.”
The defense is formidable and showing signs of improvement. The Bears are ranked No. 1 in the red zone, No. 2 on third down,
No. 1 in opponent’s completion percentage and No. 4 in opponent’s passer rating, all key metrics. But as a flawed team with a struggling offense, the Bears don’t generate respect from oddsmakers.
“It’s a league driven by offense,” Salmons said. “There’s just not too many teams that can win consistently year in and year out with just defense. You have to have an offense. If you just play defense, there is zero margin for error.”
The Bears know the feeling. Their 2018 season ended in the playoffs on a 43-yard field-goal attempt that ricocheted off the left upright and then the crossbar. That’s how thin their margin for error was. Oddsmaking factors change weekly. A team’s performance, injuries, weather, travel — everything you can imagine — are considered by people who don’t see logos and look only at numbers with one color in mind: green, as in money.
Salmons forecasts the Bears will be an underdog for their next three games. If that happens, they will be an underdog in eight of their first nine. That will change if their play improves, but rallying from 13 or more points down to defeat the Lions, Atlanta Falcons and Tampa Bay Buccaneers — and a narrow victory over the winless Giants — has not inspired confidence.
Oct. 26 at Los Angeles Rams: “That’s like Rams 7 right now,” Salmons said. “It could be a touch higher, like maybe 8½. It just depends how this week’s games go. The Rams play at the (San Francisco 49ers), so it’s kind of a letdown spot after that. If they roll the Niners and the Bears lose to the Panthers, you could be looking at 9½.” Nov. 1 versus New Orleans Saints: “Depending on if Michael Thomas is back,” Salmons said. “… Tampa Bay was around 5, 5½, and the game got bet down because Tampa had so many guys hurt on the short week, so that closing line (dropped). That was a great game for the house. A lot of it is dependent on what happens in the week in front, but right now we’re probably looking at Saints at about 4 or 4½, depending on how New Orleans looks.”
Nov. 8 at Tennessee Titans: “That’s the COVID team,” Salmons said. “If Tennessee is healthy, we’re probably looking at about 6½.”
The Bears don’t care whether they’re favored as long as they keep stacking victories, showing signs of growth along the way. If they continue to win, eventually oddsmakers will come to their side.
It’s rare to find a quality team at the end of the season that has won consistently as an underdog. Seven teams won a league-high five games as underdogs last season, a motley group of the Miami Dolphins, Falcons, New York Jets, Oakland Raiders, Houston Texans and Titans.
The Texans and Titans qualified for the playoffs. In 2018, Washington won the most games as an underdog — six.
The example to follow, maybe, is the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles, who won a seasonhigh six games as an underdog. Remember the dog masks defensive end Chris Long and offensive tackle Lane Johnson started wearing? Three of those underdog victories came in the playoffs, including Super Bowl LII.
“I don’t know about the underdog status,” said Nick Foles, who quarterbacked that Eagles team through the playoffs, when asked about the Bears. “We’re not dwelling on our record at all. Our record means nothing to us. We know where we need to get better, and a record’s not going to do that . ... I don’t know if that’s the underdog mentality or just the mentality of, ‘Hey, let’s get better.’ We know deep down that we’re not where we want to be.”
By Thursday night, money had pushed the line down to Panthers minus-1.
The way the Bears have been defying the odds and oddsmakers, they will ride their underdog status right into the playoffs. Provided they don’t turn into the Lions.