The 49ers’ Christian McCaffrey reacts after scoring a touchdown in the NFC championship game against the Lions on Jan. 28, 2024, in Santa Clara, Calif.
“For a couple years, I’ve liked the under for the Bears. I was on over 8½ wins and ‘yes’ for them to make the playoffs as soon as they both hit the market, and they’ve become very popular bets. I don’t care. I especially like the win total. There are, I don’t know, 30 reasons. Everyone will look at Caleb Williams, that they won seven games last year and they closed strong. The defense was really good at the end of the season. Everyone has those statistics. Everyone sees the same thing.
“On some of the over/under totals, they have a great number and they don’t want to move it under any circumstance. They just want to adjust the juice because they know the second they move it, they’re going to end up taking a ton of money the other way. That’s a situation here I think with the Bears you could see enough public money where they eventually move it to nine, but I would imagine it gets up to minus-200 before that.
The thing that initially struck me is the Bears will wait until Week 11 — a Nov. 17 home game against the Green Bay Packers — to begin divisional play. The 10th game of the season is the latest the Bears have ever started divisional play. They didn’t start until Week 5 in 2008, 1999 and 1987. I’m not sure how I can reassure you about Odunze other than to say I thought it was a good pick. He’s a big guy with a lot of physical ability and a lot of strengths as a wide receiver, even if he’s not elite in any one area. He enters a great situation, too, because there won’t be huge pressure on him to deliver big numbers with DJ Moore and Keenan Allen at the position.
I’ve always thought the idea of a veteran quarterback in the room to help a young starter has been overblown. Did it do much the first couple of seasons for Justin Fields? No. Did it help Mitch Trubisky when they had that guy? Not really. Plenty of stories were written about it, though., starting with offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, quarterbacks coach Kerry Joseph, passing game coordinator Thomas Brown and offensive assistants Ryan Griffin and Robbie Picazo.