49ers vs. Colts Point Spread: NFL Week 16 MNF Odds, Prediction
The penultimate Monday Night Football game of the NFL regular season features a pair of playoff hopefuls as the San Francisco 49ers visit the hugely struggling Indianapolis Colts.
The Niners are -5.5 on the NFL odds with a total of 46.5.
NFL Point Spread and Betting Analysis
San Francisco will enter Week 16 sitting sixth in the NFC with a 10-4 mark. The Niners still could win the NFC West, but both the Rams and Seahawks are 11-3 so that’s not likely. They should certainly make the post-season after imploding in 2024 largely due to injuries and missing for the first time 2020. The Niners are +700 for the division and -10000 to make the playoffs with no at +2500. This is their last regular-season road game as they finish vs. Chicago and vs. Seattle.
Things are not as clear on Indianapolis, which is so thinned out at quarterback due to injury that it signed 44-year-old grandfather Philip Rivers off the street and started him in Sunday’s loss. Rivers had not played in the NFL since 2020. Former starting QB Daniel Jones had led Indy to an 8-2 start and he was an MVP candidate, but the Colts have now dropped four in a row and lost Jones to a season-ending knee injury in Week 14. That’s partly what necessitated the Rivers signing.
The Colts currently sit eighth in the AFC so they are going to need to win down the stretch and get some help. They close vs. Jacksonville and at Houston (two good teams) and are +600 for the playoffs with no at -900. If the team misses a fifth straight season overall and third in a row under coach Shane Steichen, he might not be back in 2026.
Dating to the Colts’ Baltimore days, they lead this all-time series 27-15, and have won the last five, most recently in 2021.
San Francisco 49ers
The Niners won their fourth straight game Sunday if not playing particularly great in a 37-24 home win over a truly horrible Tennessee Titans team. The 24 points tied the most San Francisco has allowed in a win this season. That unit has been gutted by major season-ending injuries.
Brock Purdy threw for 295 yards and three scores, his fifth career game already with at least 275 pass yards, three pass TDs and zero picks, third-most in franchise history. And that franchise had Joe Montana and Steve Young.
The Niners have won all four games in this run – against pretty bad teams — by at least 10 points, tied for their second-longest streak since coach Kyle Shanahan took over in 2017.
Since Purdy returned from a right big toe injury in Week 11, the Niners are averaging 31 points per game, which ranks fourth in the NFL in that span. Tailback Christian McCaffrey scored for the fourth game in a row Sunday. San Francisco is 5-1 ATS in its past six.
Indianapolis Colts
All thing considered, 44-year-old QB Philip Rivers played pretty well Sunday in Seattle in his first NFL game in five years, but the Colts took a crushing 18-16 loss on a 56-yard field goal in the final seconds by Jason Myers, who kicked a franchise-record six field goals. Indy trailed for just 1:58.
Rivers was 18-for-27 for 120 yards with a TD and a pick in his first game in exactly 1,800 days. He was the fifth QB to start game at age 44 or older in NFL history. Rivers’ one TD pass was more than Joe Burrow, Patrick Mahomes or Drake Maye were able to muster on Sunday.
Rivers nearly engineered the 36th come-from-behind victory of his career by driving the Colts down the field and positioning kicker Blake Grupe for a 60-yard go-ahead field goal with 47 seconds remaining. But then Indy gave up a good return on the kickoff and Seattle quickly got into field-goal position.
It was the first game in NFL history featuring multiple 55-yard made field goals in the final minute of the fourth quarter. I see no reason why Rivers wouldn’t start again in Week 16. The Colts are 2-4 ATS in their past six.
NFL Prediction: Who Will Win 49ers vs. Colts?
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SF
IND