Thursday, May 17th, 2012
Jay Cutler and his Chicago Bears coming off they bye week will travel down south to face Matt Ryan and his Atlanta Falcons on NBC Sunday Night football. Kick off time in Atlanta is set for 8:20PM Eastern Time with national television coverage provided by NBC. The LVSC NFL odds makers have set the opening point spread in this contest and the home team Atlanta Falcons opened as 4 ½ point favorites with the over under coming in at 45. The early money from the NFL bettors came in on the underdog, as the Atlanta Falcons are just a 3-point favorite. The early money from the NFL betting public has come in on the over, as the total is currently lined at 46 for the bettors to play into. NFL money line gamblers can make a play on the favored Atlanta Falcons at –175 with the underdog Chicago Bears bringing back +155 to pull off the straight up win without the points.
The Atlanta Falcons came off they bye and produced a huge 45-10 win on the road at San Francisco last week. The Falcons exploded offensively with 577 yards last week against the San Francisco defense that up until last week was playing good football. Second year starting quarterback Matt Ryan is producing good numbers on the season. Ryan is hitting on 66% of his pass attempts for 7 touchdowns and 2 interceptions on the season. Wide receiver Roddy White torched the San Francisco secondary last week for 8 catches for 210 yards and two touchdowns. White scampered for a 90-yard touchdown pass in the victory against the 49ers. With White’s production it will open things up more for tight end Tony Gonzalez and the other starting wide out Michael Jenkins. On the ground Michael Turner showed a bit of life last week with 4.4 yards per carry average in 22 attempts last week. Turner is only producing 3.7 yards a carry, which is well below his career 4.7 yards per attempt average. On the defensive side of the ball the Atlanta Falcons are giving up 4.9 yards per carry which ranks 29th in the league. Through the air the Falcons are in the middle of the league surrendering 10.6 yards per catch. The Bears enter the bye week off a three game win streak. Starting quarterback Jay Cutler is hitting on 64% of his passes with 8 touchdowns but 5 interceptions. Since opening the season with 4 picks the Bears quarterback has thrown just 1 in his past three games. The Bears will need better production on the ground as their leading ball carrier Matt Forte is only producing 3.8 yards per carry in 71 of the 96 running plays for the Bears this season. The Bears defense has been good at containing the run allowing just 3.8 yards per attempt on the year. Their secondary had been off to a good start but was a bit sloppy entering the bye week. The Chicago Bears allowed the Detroit Lions to hit on 30 of 47 on their secondary for 308 passing yards. With all of Matt Ryan’s weapons in the passing game we will see if he can exploit this Bears secondary much like rookie quarterback Matthew Stafford was able to.
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NFL Trend: The Under is 6-0 in their past 6 meetings.
The Wagerline consensus has 65.1% of the NFL bettors on Atlanta –3
The Wagerline consensus has 58.1% the NFL bettors playing over 46
Tags: chicago bears versus atlanta falcons nfl nbc sunday night football betting odds pick preview, nfl betting odds
