NFL betting: Bettors like the Chicago Bears as a home underdog on Thursday

Week 6 of the NFL season gets underway on Thursday with another barnburner of a prime-time game as the Chicago Bears play host to the Washington Commanders. The teams are a combined 3-7 through the first five weeks and both are extreme long shots to make the playoffs according to the betting odds. While the MLB playoffs, college football and the NHL season gives us some more options this week, we all know we'll find ourselves tuning into the NFL anyways. There's a point spread in a standalone game, so obviously, there's plenty of betting action.

Bettors like the Bears

At the start of the week, the Chicago Bears opened as a 1.5-point home favorite against the Washington Commanders. At BetMGM, 63% of bets and 72% of the money has been backing the Bears this week. Despite that, the betting line has moved in favor of the Commanders. Currently it's Washington that is a 1-point road favorite on Thursday night.

The Commanders are just 1-4 on the season and they have that same record against the spread. Their only win and cover came all the way back in Week 1 against Jacksonville. Washington had a chance to get the win (and cover) against the Titans last week, but Carson Wentz threw an interception at the goal line in the closing seconds.

The tension in Washington was turned up a few notches this week with Ron Rivera making some strong comments about Wentz. The Commanders could definitely use a win here, or it feels like things might already be on the verge of bubbling over. However, bettors are siding with the Bears and expect the Commanders to drop to 1-5.

Chicago is 2-3 on the season, and it almost pulled off an impressive come-from-behind victory last week against Minnesota. The Bears have been more competitive than a lot of people expected, but that doesn't mean they're very good. That's reflected by the fact that they are home underdogs against a one-win team.

Low-scoring game expected

The Chicago Bears are averaging just 17.2 points per game, which ranks bottom five in the league (though ahead of the Rams, Broncos and Colts like we all expected). Justin Fields is yet to complete more than 15 passes in a game and has only reached double-digit completions in two of five games to this point.

The Washington Commanders have been a bit better, but not by much. They're averaging 18 points per game and rank 26th in the league in scoring. As mentioned above, their coach has already called out the quarterback.

The total for this game opened very low at just 39.5 points. However, it's dropped even further throughout the week. Currently at BetMGM, the total is just 38 points. Despite the very low total, the majority of the action is on the under as 60% of bets are backing the game to go under 38 points. Prime-time unders are 11-5 to begin the NFL season.

Popular props

One of the most intriguing stories of the NFL season so far has been Brian Robinson, the rookie running back for the Commanders. Robinson was shot during the preseason, but he returned to game action last week for Washington. He had nine carries compared to Antonio Gibson, who had just three carries.

Bettors are all in on the story as the two most popular prop bets at BetMGM ahead of kickoff both involve Robinson. Robinson is +750 to score the first touchdown of the game and +180 to score at anytime. Both of those bets are the two most popular bets.

The third-most popular bet involves another member of the Commanders offense. Bettors like Curtis Samuel to go over 4.5 receptions. Through five games, Samuel has 32 receptions. He's had at least five receptions in four of the five games.