Broncos Vikings Line

Written by Steve Janus - Google +

The Denver Broncos will go for their fifth straight win this Sunday when they go on the road to take on the Minnesota Vikings. The Broncos rallied from behind to beat the San Diego Chargers 16-13 last week to remain just a game back of Oakland in the AFC West race. The Vikings suffered their third straight loss in a 14-24 defeat at Atlanta. Minnesota, dropping them to just 2-9 on the year. These two teams appear to headed in completely different directions, but that doesn’t mean Denver is expected to roll past Minnesota.

Taking a look at the week 13 spreads, oddsmakers currently have the Vikings favored by 1-point over the Broncos with the total set at 37.5 points.

Denver Broncos:

When the Denver Broncos made the move to start Tim Tebow and bench Kyle Orton, most experts believed they were giving up on their season. Denver was just 1-4 when Tebow took over, but he has led this team to 6-5 overall with five wins in six starts.

While Tebow is getting a lot of the credit, the Denver defense is playing as well as any unit in the league. They held San Diego to just 344 yards in nearly five quarters of play, and held the Chargers to just one field goal after giving up 10 points in the first 22 minutes of the game.

Last week the Broncos fell behind 0-10, but no matter what the score this team just keeps fighting. Tebow would find Eric Decker on a 18-year touchdown pass with less than a minute to play in the first half. Down 10-13 late in the fourth quarter, Tebow drove the Broncos into field goal range to force overtime. After a San Diego missed field goal in extra time, Tebow once again got the offense rolling, as Matt Prater kicked the game-winning field with just 37 seconds left to play.

Tebow finished the game just 9 of 18 passing for 143 yards with a touchdown, but helped out with 67 yards on the ground. Willis McGahee stepped up with another big game, rushing for 117 yards on 23 attempts.

As bad as the Vikings have been this season, they are 9th in the NFL against the run, holding opponents to just 99.6 ypg. It will likely be another ugly game for the offense, but they have been able to wear defenses down and take advantage late in games.

Minnesota Vikings:

While things continue to not go the Vikings way, this team has shown no signs of throwing in the towel. Despite managing to win just two games all season, the Vikings have been in just about every game they have played. Seven of their nine losses have came by 10 points or less.

If this team was going to just give up, they would have done it last week after falling behind 0-17 in the first half. Instead the Vikings rallied to make it 14-17, before allowing the Falcons to seal the deal with a late fourth quarter touchdown. The impressive thing about their effort against the Falcons is they played that game without running back Adrian Peterson.

The Vikings didn’t exactly have the best offensive performance against Atlanta. Backup running back Toby Gerhart scored on a 1-yard touchdown run, but finished the game with just 44 yards on 17 attempts. Christian Ponder was just 17 of 25 for 186 yards, as Minnesota managed just 226 yards of offense the entire game. Most of the offense came from wide out Percy Harvin, who caught eight passes for 95 yards, including a 39-yard touchdown pass that pulled Minnesota within 3-points in the final period.

Whether or not Peterson will be able to return this week is still up in the air. That decision likely won’t be made until Sunday. Not having Peterson will make it very hard for Minnesota to move the ball against a fast improving Denver defense.

Betting Trends:

Denver is 7-3 ATS in their last 10 games after allowing less than 15 points in their previous game.

Minnesota is 2-9-2 ATS vs. a team with a winning record.

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