Giants vs. Bears Odds, Picks, Predictions: How To Bet This Total With Andy Dalton, Mike Glennon In NFL Week 17

Giants vs. Bears Odds

The fact that Andy Dalton and Mike Glennon are the starting quarterbacks for Sunday's game between the Chicago Bears and New York Giants is a microcosm of how the respective seasons have gone for both of these teams.

Neither has any shot of the playoffs, both teams' young quarterbacks are out, and both Justin Fields and Daniel Jones have failed to impress when healthy and playing this season.

Both fanbases want the coaches gone, but it seems only Chicago's Matt Nagy has a chance of being replaced at season's end as Joe Judge is likely to return.

Sunday's total of 37 is the lowest current total of the entire season (check real-time NFL odds here), even lower than the game that featured an elite Saints defense and Ian Book on Monday Night Football.

Giants vs. Bears Matchup

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Giants Offense Among the Worst

Since the injury to Jones in Week 12, only New Orleans has a worse offense than the Giants. The Glennon and Jake Fromm experiment has failed as the Giants are 31st in EPA/play overall, 31st in Success Rate and 32nd in Passing Success Rate.

Glennon ranks 40th out of 40 qualified QBs, per PFF, with at least 20% of his teams snaps. He's been so bad, in fact, that he grades out 14 points worse than every other qualified QB, including Cam Newton and Mike White. He's had two big-time throws and a whopping 14 turnover-worthy plays.

If you take out garbage time, this offense has failed to score 10 points in any of those four games. New York scored two late touchdowns against the Chargers to get to 21 and a late touchdown to get to 10 against Philadelphia last week. Otherwise, the Giants ended on nine against Miami and six against Dallas.

It's hard to see how much improves for the offense in this game, even against a relatively mediocre defense. Chicago's defensive weakness has come in the secondary and against explosive plays, but the Giants don't have much capability to hit either given the offensive injuries and Glennon at quarterback.

As it showed last week, the Giants defense is more vulnerable on the ground than through the air when Philadelphia ran all over them in the second half. The Giants are 27th in DVOA defense against the run, but 17th against the pass, so I expect to see Chicago control the line of scrimmage offensively.

Bears Should Rely on Ground Game

Chicago's offense has been considerably better with Andy Dalton at the helm than it's been with Fields this year. Of 43 quarterbacks with at least 100 qualified snaps, Fields ranks 37th in EPA/CPOE per play composite, per RBSDM. Dalton is noticeably higher at 31st and has a positive EPA per play average, whereas Fields is in the negative.

The success rate on offense rises from 42.5% to 45.5%, which isn't great either way, but is considerably better for Dalton. Chicago had a bit of fortune in its come-from-behind victory against the Seahawks as the Bears needed a late missed field goal from the Seahawks, were out-gained by 1.6 yards per play and the Bears offense struggled considerably in the red zone until the final drive.

Chicago should be able to find some success on the ground in this game and by hitting quick passes against the Giants defense. The Bears rank 23rd in run blocking, per PFF, and David Montgomery did struggle last week, but the Giants were thrashed on the ground by the Eagles last week and without an offense to sustain drives at all, New York's defense should wear down as this game goes on.

Giants vs. Bears Predictions

It's hard to imagine how the Bears are laying six against almost anyone in the NFL, even at home. But given how bad Mike Glennon has been, you should expect the Bears to get at least one takeaway.

Even despite this, the Bears have a lame-duck coach at home and no objective power rating has them at least four points better than the Giants on a neutral field. It's not clear what home-field advantage the Bears will even have given the fanbase's disdain for the team right now. I can't get to the number on this game at all, but I also don't trust Glennon to cover any type of spread under a touchdown given his turnover issues.

For that reason, I'm targeting the total in this game. Even with the lowest total of the year, the Bears' futile red-zone offense and Giants' ineptitude to score any points outside of garbage time makes this a prime under spot.

There shouldn't be much of a blowout for the Bears to lighten up on defense and let Glennon score late, and Chicago's run offense should bleed the clock in the second half when leading.

Pick: Under 37  | Bet to: 37