Morning Coffee: Moore delivers epic performance as Bears get first win

Anything can happen on any given Sunday in the NFL.

Or, as we saw last night, anything can happen on any given Thursday night in the NFL.

The Chicago Bears had lost a franchise-record 14 straight games, giving up 25 points in every one of them, and were a six-point underdog at FanDuel for their Thursday Night Football clash with the Washington Commanders.

They led by 24 points at the half and cruised to a 40-20 win.

As a football fan, it was great to listen to the legendary Magic Johnson discuss his motivation for turning around the Commanders franchise as a limited partner in the team’s new ownership group during the pre-game broadcast coverage.

Unfortunately, those fans were booing their team off the field by the half as the winless Bears dominated Washington in a convincing victory as a +215 money line underdog at FanDuel. 

This is the Morning Coffee for Friday, Oct. 6, 2023.

Moore delivers epic performance as Bears get first win

The Bears snapped several notable streaks with last night’s 20-point win over the Commanders.

Chicago had lost a franchise-record 14 straight games.

The Bears had allowed 25-plus points in all of those losses, which was the longest streak in NFL history.

Justin Fields was 0-12 in his previous 12 starts. Chicago had turned the ball over at least one time in 12 straight games – the longest streak in the NFL.

All of those streaks came to an end with a remarkable Bears’ performance last night.

Fields threw for 282 yards and four touchdowns. He became just the second quarterback in franchise history to throw four touchdown passes in back-to-back games. He also didn’t turn the ball over in the win.

Fields didn’t waste any time going to work with his No. 1 wide receiver D.J. Moore, who finished with eight catches for 230 yards and three touchdowns on 10 targets.

It didn’t take long for the FanDuel Best Bet from Thursday’s Morning Coffee column to cash.

Moore finished 19 yards shy of Alshon Jeffery’s franchise record for the most receiving yards in a single game.

As if that wasn’t enough, he could have had another TD.

Hopefully, you didn’t bet the under on his receiving yards and receptions prop. Also, condolences to anyone facing Moore in fantasy football leagues this week.

I’m one of those people, so after cashing the best bet on the third play from scrimmage, it was difficult to watch Moore dominate well into the second half.

In case you missed it, Washington’s struggles on the defensive side of the football are nothing new.

The Commanders have allowed a 100-yard receiver in four straight games and 30-plus points in four straight games.

Washington allowed 30-plus points just twice last season.

The Commanders’ odds to make the playoffs jumped from +250 to +410 following the loss.

Meanwhile, the Bears aren’t a contender at +1300 to make the playoffs, but they could have beat the Denver Broncos last week and they just beat Washington convincingly last night.

Next up, Chicago gets the Minnesota Vikings at home next Sunday in what suddenly seems like a very winnable game.

The Bears are getting 3.5 points for that game on the lookahead line at FanDuel.

A FanDuel Best Bet for NFL Sunday Week 5

We are 5-0 with the FanDuel Best Bets in Morning Coffee to start the month of October.

Let’s try to get to 6-0 with a Same Game Parlay for Sunday’s game between the Carolina Panthers and Detroit Lions.

The Lions are 3-1 this season and could be perfect if it wasn’t for a second-half collapse against the Seattle Seahawks in Week 2.

Detroit will benefit from the extra rest after playing the Green Bay Packers on Thursday Night Football in Week 4.

Plus, Jared Goff and company will have the home-field advantage in what should be a very loud stadium as their defence looks to feast on a rookie 22-year-old quarterback in Bryce Young.

Young has really struggled to push the ball downfield this season, and Carolina could struggle to move the football on the ground with running back Miles Sanders banged up against a defence that has been excellent against the run early on this season.

Amon-Ra St. Brown hasn’t practised this week and Jamison Williams is being worked into the offence following his return from suspension, but we know the Lions will want to pound the rock against a defence that is actually marginally better against the pass than the run.

That should lead to another heavy workload for Detroit’s running back David Montgomery, who had a career-high 34 carries for 134 yards and a touchdown in last week’s win over the Packers.

Rookie running back Jahmyr Gibbs is being worked into the offence slowly, and perhaps we could finally see him get some more snaps at wide receiver if St. Brown is out or limited by injury.

Montgomery should be in line for another big game, and while I’m tempted to take him to go over 73.5 rushing yards, I took a different approach to betting this game.

I built a Same Game Parlay with Montgomery to rush for 60+ yards and the Lions to win at -140 odds at FanDuel.

Montgomery has rushed for 60+ yards in each of his first three games with Detroit. Hopefully he can do it again this week, and we can go to 6-0 with the FanDuel Best Bets in Morning Coffee to begin the month of October.