Who is the best quarterback from that heralded 2024 NFL Draft class? The jury is still out short-term, but two of the leading candidates for that honor meet in an incredibly intriguing Week 7 kickoff on Thursday Night Football as Drake Maye and the New England Patriots visit Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears. It's a typical 8:15 p.m. ET kick on Prime Video.
I circled this game when the NFL schedule was released in May, as Patriots-Bears would probably be my ideal Super Bowl LXI, 41 years after Chicago won its only title in Super Bowl XX in blasting New England from the Superdome in New Orleans. I remember it like yesterday, even if I was a pup, and wish I could go back and tell Little Sevy to enjoy it as he might not see it again. And now that Mike Ditka has passed away and this is Da Bears' first home game since ... yeah this means more.
Plus, I entered this season wondering if the Bears got it wrong atop the 2024 draft in taking Williams over Jayden Daniels (No. 2 to Washington) or Maye (No. 3 to New England). But fortunes change so quickly for young quarterbacks. There were a record-tying six QBs taken in Round 1 in 2024 and all six in the Top 12 – that will probably be never be matched.
Other than Michael Penix (No. 8 to Atlanta) and J.J. McCarthy (No. 10 to Minnesota and now with the Giants), each of the other four probably could have claimed superiority over the rest of the class at one point.
Daniels won Offensive Rookie of the Year and got his team to the NFC title game in 2024, but he has gone backward some, can't stay healthy and makes some really questionable on-field decisions at times. Maye was the NFL MVP runner-up and got the Pats to last year's Super Bowl, but looked overmatched in that loss and early this year. Nix got the Broncos to last season's AFC title game but couldn't play due to injury, and Nix has been so poor offensively this year that Sean Payton had to tell the media that Nix wouldn't be benched.
I'd prefer Williams to the rest, but I'm biased. It's great for the league/Amazon Prime in terms of hyping this game that he was able to return from injury Sunday while shining. Maye also has turned his season around after looking brutal in the first three games and is back in the MVP conversation (+1500 to win). A few weeks ago, this wasn't looking all that intriguing as it was in the summer.
A Patriots-Bears Super Bowl 61 matchup is priced +6400. At 4-2, both are second in their respective divisions. Chicago has shorter playoff odds (-215) than New England (-450) because the Bears play in the mega-tough NFC North and have four division games left. The Pats are in the other-than-Buffalo mega-easy AFC East and still get two games against the atrocious Dolphins and one more vs. the bad Jets.
The SportsLine Projection gives Chicago a 53.8% shot at the postseason, and that rises to 61.3% with a win and drops to 42.9% with a loss. New England has a 65.4% shot that rises to 76.8% with the minor upset and falls to 56.2% with a loss.
We'll take you through every aspect of the Patriots vs. Bears game that you need to know before you lock in your bets, including SportsLine expert picks, props, trends, DFS, injury information and anything else that will help you know which plays are worth making for the prime-time matchup.
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