Chicago at Houston

You've always gotta look closely at home dogs in the NFL preseason, especially one that has a 3-1 record in the preseason under their current head coach. As we discussed in our prediction that the Bears would lose 6+ games this year, history has been un-kind to the Superbowl runner-up over the years. They often come back with less than what they had the year before in terms of effort and performance. This is widely known but what may not be as well known is that this scenerio has manifested itself in the exhibition season as well as the regular season. Game one of the exhibition season for those that have lost the Superbowl shows just one ATS win in the last nine years. The mark is 1-6 ATS the last seven years. As you can see, Superbowl winners and losers are often over-valued as we wind through the slate of exhibition games. The mark over the last 10 years shows a 39-47-7 overall performance against the line, with the Superbowl winner and loser both in the red. There is also a history of week one home dogs out-performing the line in a big way, so we have a lot of signals leading the way for the Texans to come away with the money in front of the home crowd. The last two times they have been in this role as a dog at home, they have cashed as well.