{"id":1842,"date":"2026-01-16T01:32:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T17:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/16\/nfl-round-vs-pick-spread-predictions-for-every-game-can-the-bears-keep-up\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T18:22:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T10:22:24","slug":"nfl-round-vs-pick-spread-predictions-for-every-game-can-the-bears-keep-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/16\/nfl-round-vs-pick-spread-predictions-for-every-game-can-the-bears-keep-up\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL round vs. pick spread, predictions for every game: Can the Bears keep up?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Chicago Bears can check out the rest of the postseason and already have their fans excited.<\/p>\n<p>This has been a dream season for Chicago. The NFC North title was great. Beating the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs took it to another level. Ben Johnson certainly liked it, and let the Packers know about it. He spoke for all Bears fans.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>But the Bears&#8217; season isn&#8217;t over yet. They have another shot at victory that will (somehow) make this season even more memorable.<\/p>\n<p>The Los Angeles Rams are coming to Chicago, and the Rams haven&#8217;t played as a Super Bowl favorite in over a month. They beat the Seahawks in Week 16, lost to the Falcons in Week 17 (and Sean McVay angrily said his players needed to play in Week 18 because they weren&#8217;t playing well), trailed a terrible Cardinals team in the final third quarter before pulling away, and the team scored a mediocre 9. the season. The Rams were a Super Bowl favorite, and they have the ability to do it, but they will need to play better to get there.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the Bears continue to defy logic in many situations. Teams shouldn&#8217;t fall behind and rally to win more often, but the Bears have never been out of a game. They have confidence, with a quarterback in Caleb Williams who played very well in the fourth quarter. That goes a long way.<\/p>\n<p>The Rams are 3.5 point favorites at BetMGM. That was Rams -4.5 earlier in the week but it has dropped. Maybe the weather, which is expected to be 20 degrees at start with a 52% chance of snow, has the badgers fading in Los Angeles. Or maybe it&#8217;s the idea that the Bears just find a way to get back into games and pull out wins. Maybe the Rams win, but it will be close. <strong>Bears +3.5 is the pick<\/strong>and another entertainment game at Soldier Field on tap.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"content-figure\">\n<div class=\"content-image\"><button aria-label=\"View larger image\" class=\"lightbox-btn\" data-ylk=\"elm:expand;itc:1;sec:image-lightbox;slk:lightbox-open;\"><span class=\"lightbox-expand\"><svg viewbox=\"0 0 22 22\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"size-4 lg:size-6\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\"><path d=\"M12.372.92c0-.506.41-.916.915-.916L21 0l-.004 7.712a.917.917 0 0 1-1.832 0V3.183l-6.827 6.828-1.349-1.348 6.828-6.828h-4.529a.915.915 0 0 1-.915-.915M1.835 17.816l6.828-6.828 1.349 1.349-6.829 6.827h4.529a.915.915 0 0 1 0 1.831L0 21l.004-7.713a.916.916 0 0 1 1.831 0z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/button><dialog aria-label=\"Image Lightbox\" class=\"lightbox-overlay\" aria-modal=\"true\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"fig-caption\">\n<div style=\"max-height:none;overflow:visible\">\n<p>Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears are under a good Rams team. (Photo by Cooper Neill\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"caption-credit\">    (Cooper Neill via Getty Images)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Here are some options for the division round, with all the odds from BetMGM:<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"heading\" data-jump-link-target=\"\" id=\"broncos--15-over-bills\">Broncos (-1.5) over the Bills<\/h2>\n<p>The Bills started the week as a 1 point low. Perhaps bettors overestimated the popularity of the Josh Allen betting public. The line has been headed toward Denver since the beginning of the week.<\/p>\n<p>There are many reasons to love the Broncos side. They are at home, and the height gives them a unique advantage. The Broncos had a bye week while the Bills had a short week in transition from Sunday to Saturday. Denver is also a very good team. They were seventh in DVOA this season, one spot above the Bills. The Broncos have been let down more than you&#8217;d expect from a 14-win team, but that&#8217;s because of their 11 wins in games decided by eight points or less, and an offense that tends to disappear for long periods of time.<\/p>\n<p>Allen rates the Bills. They have injury issues at receiver and secondary, the run defense has been poor this season and they rely heavily on their quarterback, who suffered a finger, foot and knee injury against the Jaguars last week. But they have Allen. That gives them an advantage in any game, but the Broncos have done a lot for them.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"heading\" data-jump-link-target=\"\" id=\"49ers-7-over-seahawks\">49ers (+7) over the Seahawks<\/h2>\n<p>The Seahawks just came through, facing a 49ers team that lost George Kittle to an Achilles tear. We saw Seattle dominate the 49ers in San Francisco two weeks ago, a 13-3 win that earned them the No. 1 seed. This game is in Seattle because of that win. The point is spread, with a full touch down, it doesn&#8217;t look wrong.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, the 49ers have been surprising everyone all season. Why can&#8217;t it happen again in this group stage game?<\/p>\n<p>The 49ers pulled off a huge upset on wild card weekend with a win in Philadelphia. Doing it after Kittle&#8217;s injury added to the surprise. San Francisco has gotten to this point thanks to a great coaching job from Kyle Shanahan and defensive coordinator Robert Saleh. The 49ers looked awful, especially on offense, against Seattle two weeks ago. But they will fix it. Seattle is the best, but San Francisco can keep this game close.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"heading\" data-jump-link-target=\"\" id=\"patriots--3-over-texans\">Patriots (-3) over Texas<\/h2>\n<p>This is a tough pick against Houston, whose defense is clearly tournament quality. And the Texans were my pick when the playoffs started to win the AFC. But the injury to Nico Collins changes things.<\/p>\n<p>Collins was hit hard on Monday night. It&#8217;s his second concussion of the season, and the Texans are playing on a short break this week. It seems unlikely that Collins, Houston&#8217;s leading offensive lineman, will play on Sunday. And no matter how good the Texans defense is, the offense needs to find something.<\/p>\n<p>The Patriots look good heading into wild card weekend. Their defense had their best game of the season, holding the Chargers out of last place. They won&#8217;t score as many points against Houston, but with Collins out, they may not need to score as many points to win and rally.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Last week<\/strong><strong>: <\/strong>2-4<\/p>\n<p><strong>Season so far: <\/strong>136-135-7<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chicago Bears can check out the rest of the postseason and already have their fans excited. This has been a dream season for Chicago. The NFC North title was great. Beating the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs took it to another level. Ben Johnson certainly liked it, and let the Packers know about &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1842"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1844,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1842\/revisions\/1844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}