Defense, defense, defense…What is the old saying? “Defense wins championships”? Well, we are going to get plenty of defense tonight out of a team where their best offense is most likely going to be their best defense in the Denver Broncos…a team that is ran by a former quarterback but can’t figure out how to generate any production out of the offensive side of the ball as Denver is ranked dead last in the league in this category.
According to th DVOA or (defense adjusted over average) Kansas City is the number one ranked team and for good reason, The Cheifs are the best offensive team in the league and defending Super Bowl Champions, an elite quarterback in Patrick Mahomes and a star studded cast of weapons on the offensive side of the ball. Kansas City is around a two touchdown favorite tonight in this matchup at Arrowhead but I’m more interested in this total that is hovering around 51 to 52 points. If Kansas City has a weak spot that weak spot it is their rushing defense who ranks 24th in the league against opposing running backs.
In order for the Broncos to keep pace tonight as a two touchdown road underdog they will have to rely heavily on the legs of Melvin Gordon III and back up Phillip Lindsey. Gordon is the 22nd ranked running back in the league via NFL Fantasy and is projected at 12.73 points and is priced expensively at $12,500 tonight via Fanduel. In order for Denver to cover they are going have to have long time consuming drives in order to keep the lethal Kansas City offense off the field.
As a sports handicapper, I like to cap different aspects of the game, for example; did you know that The Denver first half team total is 7.5 points? Or that 75% of the betting money is on the over? The public is firmly thinking this game will go under the advertised projection. The issue here is that this is a Sunday Night featured game and things usually don’t go the way the public wants them to. These games typically follow the book maker lines and I would expect no different from a game like this.
Kansas City is a full on public favorite and I love nothing more than to fade delusional fan bases…especially Kansas City. The old saying is that the public always remembers what they saw last. The last time was Denver getting blown out by New Orleans at home. This will be one of the most bet on games of the week with Kansas City owning over 70% of the betting tickets and the money. I don’t buy it and I will look for a play inside the lines as well as out right fading the public perception.
If everyone is so scared of playing the Denver offense then why aren’t their numbers more blatant? We all know what the game plan is going to be on the Denver side. What about the home team side? How are these numbers moving as opposed to what is going on inside the lines? They are moving in the darling…
If you are running a Vegas type projection on this game, the best thing to do is to divide the numbers down and what I mean by that is the numbers can’t get out of wack so to speak, they have to stay within the set guidelines of the game. For example the total on this game is at 51.5, right? Now and divide that by 2 and you will get 25.75, now check this with the first half total…what is it? Surprise, surprise 25.5. So, this circles back to what I was saying is that the numbers have to stay in the already set algorithms that were set by the odds makers.
In order to effectively handicap an NFL feature game, you have to have a mindset of why the lines are set the way they are why the numbers move like they do, Kansas City could very well blow out the team from Colorado, but then the numbers come into play…home field advantage doesn’t help, with home teams in Weeks 10-17 are just 22-24 SU and 19-26-1 ATS (42.2%) since 2014.
I will take the Broncos and the points in this one.
#wmfThe PlayDenver Broncos +14 -125 (b1/2)
