NFL Week 4 Bears Line: Eagles Will Cover and Take the Under

This week, we predict the the straight up outcome of the Bears-Eagles game, whether the Bears will cover the point spread, and a prediction on the over/under. The Bears have a losing season ahead of them.

There are a lot of reasons why they are going to lose again Sunday. Let's start with the Eagles playing in the NFC's toughest division, the NFC East. They're coming off a 15-6 home win against a good Steelers team after narrowly losing to the Dallas Cowboys in Dallas the week before, 37-41. Dallas is the NFC's best right now. In their season opener the Eagles whacked St. Louis 38-3.

The Bears on the other hand don't have the horses to compete in the middle-of-the-road NFC North. The pride of the division, the Green Bay Packers, went down at home without much of a fight against the visiting Dallas Cowboys last week 16-27. In other words the Philadelphia Eagles have a real football team.

The Bears did beat the Indianapolis Colts in Indianapolis in their own season opener but Colt's QB Peyton Manning was coming off a six week pre-season injury that kept him off the field through the pre-season right up to game time with the Bears. It also looks like the Colts this year may be slipping hard from their position as an AFC powerhouse. The Colts dropped their second game of this season last week to a very good Jacksonville Jaguars team.

After blowing a two touchdown lead in losing 20-17 to the Carolina Panthers two weeks ago, the Bears blew a 24-14 fourth quarter lead last week against the Tampa Bay Bucs. The Bears gave up 407 yards passing against Tampa Bay's journeyman QB Brian Griese. That's no misprint, 407 yards! Any time you see something like that it's a red flag. Sure the Bears defense against the run was ranked 8th in the league going into the Tampa Bay game and that ranking moves up to 4th based on the defense giving up only 47 rushing yards to the Bucs, but really the Bears defense is a mess and it's going to show against a real offense. The Eagles have a real offense.It gets worse for the Bears. Eagles All-Pro running back Brian Westbrook is likely to see action against the Bears. He left last week's Eagle-Steelers game with an ankle injury and left the stadium after the game on crutches. The Eagle offense led by Donovan McNabb knows how to put points on the board. The Bears? Forget it. The Bears offense is a 1-trick pony--give the ball to rookie running back Matt Forte. Out of 97 total rushing attempts this season (not counting QB scrambles) the ball's been handed off to Matt Forte 73 times. An NFL team needs more than a single prong attack and that's all the Bears have so far. The thing is that no one expects the Bears to develop any more this season offensively. The thinking is that Kyle Orton will make some plays for you and he'll help you more than he'll hurt you in the long run. In Fact he's got a QB rating of 79 which is good for a Chicago QB. But, it's practically considered common knowledge in Chicago that Kyle Orton is not going to win a game for you. Meaning he's not going to make game winning plays. Chicago's a "let's get a field goal" type team. They have a great field goal kicker too in All-Pro Robbie Gould.

The Bears offense is mistake prone on and off the field. There's no one in Chicago who isn't calling for offensive coordinator Ron Turner's firing. Everybody is wondering where's the defense? Where is the defense? Where's the offense?

Why aren't the Bears going to be blown out this weekend if they stink so bad? Because the Bears need a good showing this week after two miserable, embarrassing losses to prove to themselves they are at least a 7-9 ball club. A blowout here and the wheels may come off the 2008 Bears sending them to a possible 4-12 record or worse. It's crazy but the Bears have something to prove here. They know they're crummy, but even crummy teams want to prove something occasionally. The Bears want to prove to they're not a joke, so they'll play the Eagles tough. They don't have the talent to win the game though.

PREDICTION

Take the EAGLES and give the 3.5 points this week against the Bears. The Bears will lose the game and the Eagles will cover the 3.5 spread handily. Take the under. It will be a relatively low scoring game. Final Eagles over Bears 17-9.

The experts all said the Bears had no chance against The Colts in the season opener and the Bears won that game. Believe me, don't put too much on that win over the Colts. The Bears are going to get beat by Philadelphia this Sunday night.