Rovell: Bills Overrated In Windy Matchup vs. Bears
Quinn Harris/Getty Images. Pictured: Justin Fields.
By pedigree, it looks to be the most lopsided game of Week 16: The 11-3 Buffalo Bills against the 3-11 Chicago Bears.
The Bills are the No. 1 team in the NFL, according to DVOA. Meanwhile, Chicago is the fourth-worst team in football, by that same metric, and tout the second-worst defense in the league.
Compare that to Josh Allen's No. 4 ranked offense.
Along with that, the Bears have played like garbage since beating the Patriots in October on Monday Night Football.
Since then, they've lost seven straight games by an average margin of about nine points.
Over that stretch, they've had the league's second-worst team and worst defense.
Because of these factors, the Bears are 8.5-point underdogs at home.
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But this is the gift of the week. Hear me out. Despite the advanced metrics, there's enough counter-data to counteract the rest of the noise.
For one, according to the Action Network's proprietary luck rankings, the Bears are the third unluckiest team in the league at No. 29. Read more about the specific metrics we use for those rankings in the link above.
Meanwhile, the Bills are the sixth-luckiest team.
Unlucky teams that differ by at least 16 places in our luck rankings have gone 33-20-0 (62%) against the spread overall.
That's an unreal annualized ROI of 19%. A $500 per game bettor would be up $5,000.
In general, our luck rankings are electric. If you had wagered $500 on every team that was unluckier than its adversary, you'd be up $5,250.
That's a 104-84-4 (55%) ATS record this season and a 12.3% ROI.
Then comes the weather, which will nerf the Bills' passing game. If the projected 22 miles per hour winds hold up, our data from BetLabs reflects that it would be the windiest game in the windy city in a decade.
That means the ground game will be king. And the ground game is all Bears, the team with the most rushing yards in the NFL. While Buffalo's rush defense has been solid all year, there were gaps last week against the Dolphins, when they let Raheem Mostert drop 136 yards on them.
The Bills are also overrated against the spread. After blowing teams away in the beginning of the season, the Bills have covered only once — against the Patriots — in the last seven.
I'm rolling with the Bears +8.5 at BetMGM tomorrow.
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