NFL Week 13 Friday

BEARS @ EAGLES - 3 PM

---

Is this possibly a battle for homefield in a potential playoff matchup?

So the Chicago Bears have won 8 of their last 9 games, which is awesome. 5 of these wins have come when trailing in the final two minutes of the 4th quarter.

An interesting matchup in this game is the turnover battle. The Eagles are 40-2 under Sirianni when they win the turnover battle.

This is huge.

I think the main talking point in this game is the Eagles offense. The Eagles will NOT be switching playcallers. Sirianni is sticking with Kevin Patullo.

I've been very vocal about how I don't think the Bears run defense is reliable, but the Eagles have not been able to run the ball all season.

The injury situation on this side of the ball is crazy. Moreso for Chicago's defense.

I would imagine Philadelphia can run the ball in this game. Chicago's been getting consistently run on since TJ Edwards got hurt in the Bengals game. The Eagles run game has been concerning though. There's even talk of mixing in Tank Bigsby more.

As far as throwing the ball though, it should be a good matchup for Jalen Hurts. Even with the injuries to the offensive line, I would imagine Hurts has some clean pockets to throw from.

Couple things worry be here for Hurts though. First, he was throwing the ball well earlier in the season. We've seen the efficiency numbers dip in the last 3 games.

And second, not only has Chicago been stronger against the pass and getting pieces back in the secondary, but it's also supposed to be a windy day in Philly. We just saw a windy game in Philly against the Lions and Hurts really struggled to throw the ball against a very injured Lions secondary. 14/28 135 yards.

On the other side of the ball, we've got a good matchup here.

We saw the Eagles come crashing back down to earth last week. Cowboys had zero problems moving the ball on em. But now they get back outdoors in windy conditions where they tend to be pretty dominant.

Little bit of a concern for Philadelphia. Both safeties got banged up in the Dallas game. Makuba's been ruled out and Blankenship is dealing with a quad injury. Those are two of the team's leading tacklers and they're two of the most important players on the field in terms of limiting explosive plays.

Surprisingly, the Bears have been one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL. They're 6th in explosive play rate this year.

We are seeing the Bears offense come back down to earth a bit now that they're seeing some tougher defenses. They had a stretch where they played WAS, NO, BAL, CIN, NYG... but even the last 2 games against MIN and PIT, the Bears were moving the chains.

Obviously, the Eagles pass rush is a concern here. Since adding Jaelon Phillips and bringing Brandon Graham back, the Eagles pass rush has been good. Caleb Williams has shaky numbers under pressure, although he's been significantly better this year.

And we can't sleep on the Bears offensive line. They've been great at generating push in the run game. They've also done a great job protecting Caleb Williams. This is actually a good battle here between the Bears offensive line and the Eagles defensive line.

The Eagles have had some problems dealing with downfield throws and Caleb Williams has been excellent throwing the ball downfield this year... but I'm not sure how much the wind plays a factor here.

The Bears are gonna try to run the ball. They don't turn it over. I think they can make this game competitive. I took Bears +7 early cuz I was confident it would close 6/6.5. I didn't realize the Bears injury report was gonna be that bad, I was hoping we'd get one of those linebackers back. But the way the Eagles have played this year, I still think I'm in decent shape.

I'm on Bears +7.