NFL

Monday Night Football Betting: Welcome to the Najee Harris Show

Tonight’s matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Chicago Bears features two teams heading in different directions in the standings, with the Steelers on the three-game winning streak and the Bears on the three-game skid.

This week has been full of notable upsets, so despite being seven-point underdogs, maybe the Bears can pull off the upset.

Here is how numberFire ranks each team heading into tonight’s game using our nERD metric and Net Expected Points (NEP):

Team nERD nERD Rank Off NEP Rank Def NEP Rank
Pittsburgh Steelers 4.6 8 20 4
Chicago Bears -7.49 26 31 19

Inside the Standard Bets

Our model is giving the edge to Steelers, having them winning outright 75.1% of the time and covering the 7.0- point spread 47.8% of the time.

At Online Sportsbook, the Steelers moneyline odds are -320 (implied probability 76.2%) and odds to cover the spread are set at -110 (52.4%), which don’t present much value, per our model.

Value on the Bears isn’t good, either, as their odds to win outright are +260 (27.8% implied), and our model’s likelihood that they will cover is 45.7%, which is too stiff a price at -110.

The point total line for this matchup is pretty low at 39.5 points, but our model gives a 64.1% chance we’ll see more points than that and has the over (-114 odds, 53.3% implied) as a two-star value bet.

Player Prop Value Bets

Steelers lead back Najee Harris is averaging 24.3 carries and 98.0 rushing yards over his last three games. Coming into the week, Chicago ranked 29th in Adjusted Defensive Rushing NEP per play (0.10) and has allowed 112.9 rushing yards per game this season.

With Najee likely getting an extended workload against a poor Bears run defense, I expect him to easily eclipse his rushing yards line of 82.5 (-113), and he has a good chance to go over his rushing attempts line of 19.5 (-114).

numberFire’s player projections agree here, as well, forecasting 19.89 carries and 85.14 rushing yards.

Our player projection model also has Bears quarterback Justin Fields passing for 198.42 passing yards, which is comfortably over his passing yardage line at 182.5 (-114). While Fields has passed for more than this total only twice this season in his six starts, he has been on the doorstep on two other occasions.

Steelers rookie tight end Pat Freiermuth may seem like a value bet to score (+280) and to go over his receiving yardage line (33.5 | -113), but the Bears have been particularly stingy against tight ends this season, allowing only 1 touchdown reception and 225 receiving yards to the position coming into Week 8. This is likely why Pat’s receiving yardage projection is only 29.29 yards.

Bears tight end Cole Kmet is the tight end you want to take the over on. His receiving yardage line is at 26.5 yards (-120), and he's gone over that in two of his last three games. His receiving projection is 30.75 yards.

Final Notes

As home favorites, the Steelers are 0-3 against the spread (ATS) this season, but the Bears are only 1-3 ATS as road underdogs, so something has to give here. Though with a seven-point spread, we could be headed to the dreaded -- but sometimes a relief -- push.

The under has hit in each of the last five Steelers home games when they were favored, as well as the last three road games when the Bears were underdogs.