Week 14: Bears vs. 49ers Spread Analysis & Pick

Chicago Bears (4-8 SU, 6-4-2 ATS) vs. San Francisco 49ers (5-7 SU, 4-8 ATS)
NFL Football Week 14
Date/Time: Sunday, December 8, 2024 at 4:25PM EST
Where: Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, California
TV: Fox

The Chicago Bears come to Levi’s Stadium for a Week 14 NFC showdown with the San Francisco 49ers. To put it simply, both teams are struggling. Chicago has fallen to depths that led to the firing of their coach since their last game on Thanksgiving, a 23-20 loss to Detroit where the handling of the clock late in the game was botched. For a Bears team that started at 4-2, this patch of six straight losses has been a real backbreaker. San Francisco, meanwhile, the defending conference champions, suffered another loss on Sunday, a bad 35-10 setback to the Bills, dumping them to 5-7. With their margin for error having shrunken down to nothing, can they get it rolling this week? Let’s break it down!

The State of Both Teams

Whether it was the rotten patch the Bears had been on or the flubbing of the clock management on Thursday, Chicago head coach Matt Eberflus is gone, with offensive coordinator Thomas Brown taking over in the interim role. On the one hand, they have some punch on offense, and maybe having Brown in there will give way to some renewed energy on this team, which is something we’ve seen before with an in-season coaching change. At the same time, it’s not like Eberflus was some hated guy, with the team now ready to take on this positive outlook. They get the long week to sort things out but face a long road-trip against a desperate Niners team.

While there is no shame in losing to the Bills in the snow on the road, the manner in which the desperate Niners were dissected is a bit concerning. The injuries are also starting to weigh down on the 49ers, with Christian McCaffrey now out for the year. It appears Jordan Mason has suffered the same fate, taking their embarrassment of riches at running back and leaving them thin in that area. There is the tragic family issue with Trent Williams, along with a defense with a list of injuries too lengthy to cover in this space. So, while one might be inclined to project that the defending NFC champions will snap out of this funk at some point, the conditions may not favor it. In San Francisco’s corner, however, is the fact they play in a division where no one is running away with it and they still have a shot, though they need to start winning now. This is the real line in the sand. If they can’t take it to a slip-sliding Bears team at home this week, it’s probably a wrap. And for all the Bears’ issues, all the Niners could manage up to this point is being one measly game ahead of them.

Danger for San Fran This Week

The tendency this week on the part of the general betting public may be to underestimate the Bears. They see a team starting off at 4-2, then losing six straight to fall to 4-8. Their coach gets canned. It leaves an image of Chicago as a dysfunctional team that is overturned on their backs. That isn’t terribly consistent with what we’ve actually been seeing with Chicago in terms of a football product. In their last three games, they were leading the Packers in the 4th, with a late score costing them a victory by a single point. They followed that by taking the Vikings to overtime in a FG loss, before going into Detroit and putting themselves in a position where they should have at least had a chance to tie it. Still, you see the Bears competing well within the NFC North, which just so happens to have three NFC contenders in their division.

Chicago was actually worse in the beginning stages of this 6-game losing streak. Over the last several weeks, we’re seeing better play from rookie QB Caleb Williams. He has a lot of tools on offense. There are mistakes and inconsistency, but with a nice receiver corps, a good tight end, and a hit-and-miss run game, they can look good here and there. And for the better part of the last month, they’ve been pretty close to taking down some really good teams, which just stands in contrast to their bottom-line assessment as a team on a long losing slide who just canned their head coach.

Writing Off the 49ers

We are rapidly approaching that point. Sure no one is running away with the NFC West and it’s not like the 49ers don’t have excuses with the litany of personnel issues on both sides of the ball. While they are deep and have dealt with this before, there are certain realities they can no longer buck. The injuries have now taken a toll. And while you can site urgency, they were urgent before now, and it still didn’t take. At the same time, they’re not playing Buffalo or Green Bay this week as they have the last two weeks and things can maybe look a little different in this far more-cushy context.

Lay the Number

I think this Bovada spread we see here is reasonable enough. It clearly takes into account both Chicago being dangerous and San Fran not being what they were a short time ago. This time last season, this would be north of double-digits. At a little over a FG, I think a halfway-optimistic view can be substantiated on the Niners, the idea being that they use an advantageous spot to at least lend a dash of hope as they move forward down the final stretch of games this season. I’ll take the 49ers in this one.

Loot’s Prediction to Cover the Point Spread:

I’m betting on the San Francisco 49ers minus 3.5 points.