Denver Broncos vs. Kansas City Chiefs Picks & Odds

Written September 26, 2008 by Jack Jones

In one of the NFL’s best rivalries the Denver Broncos and their high powered offense will look to make it a perfect 4-0 start to the season when they take on the Kansas City Chiefs at the always tough Arrowhead Stadium. Last week the Broncos put on another show scoring 34 points against the Saints in a hard fought 34-32 win. The Chiefs haven’t really got much of anything going on either side of the ball, and their most recent loss came against the Atlanta Falcons pushing them to a winless 0-3. The Broncos came in and beat the Chiefs at home last season, and they haven’t done it in back to back years in over 30 years. Even with that stat it won’t have the odds makers favoring the Chiefs, as the Broncos come in as 9.5 point favorites at BetUS.com.

The Broncos offense is on an identical pace to that of the Patriots of last year, when they just beat up on teams week in and week out. Quarterback Jay Cutler is looking like the real deal the more and more we see him play. Cutler is completing 67% of his passes, and needs just 86 yards to reach a 1,000 yards on the season. Receiver Brandon Marshall is reaping the benefits of Cutler’s arm, as he has 24 catches for 321 yards and 2 scores in just 2 games. Its not like Denver can’t run the ball either, as both Selvin Young and Andre Hall have over a 100 yards and both are gaining over 5 yards a carry, while Young is averaging a silly 6.9 yards per attempt. Facing a pretty bad Chiefs defense the Broncos could put up 50 in this one.

The bad part about the offense is the defense is giving them little to no help, and its easy to say that this team could of easily lost its last two games, as the D gave up 38 points to the Chargers and 32 last week to the Saints. Last week they gave up over 500 yards of total offense, and made it look easy for the Saints. While this likely won’t be a problem against the Chiefs this week, as their offense is about as bad as it gets in the league, this is a concern we have on this team for the future. Bet the Broncos -9.5 at BetUS.com

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Things just aren’t going good in Kansas City, and that really can’t be much of a surprise as they so young at so many positions. The team remains without starting quarterback Brodie Croyle whose right shoulder is not ready to go. Last week the team gave Tyler Thigpen a chance to show what he can do, and he didn’t show much throwing 3 interceptions, and completed just 14 passes on 36 attempts. This week the Chief go back to the veteran Damon Huard, in hopes he can get this unit rolling, as it is averaging just 10.7 points a game. Running back Larry Johnson had his best game in a long time running for 121 yards and score. Receivers Dwayne Bowe and Tony Gonzalez remain the only reliable targets through the air. If this unit struggles to score on the Broncos lack luster defense than its going to be a very long season in Kansas City.

The defense of the Chiefs isn’t anything to talk about either. After letting the Raiders and Darren McFadden run all over them in week 2, they let the Falcons Michael Turner do the same thing last week. You can’t come down to hard on this unit, as the offense seems to go 3 and out nearly every series, and its just to much to ask for a defense to perform at a high level when they are on the field for the whole game. If the Chiefs can find a way to move the football, we wouldn’t be surprised to see this team put a scare in the Broncos perfect record this season. Bet the Chiefs +9.5 at BetUS.com

Though its hard to win in KC, and the Chiefs always seem to play the Broncos tough at home, we just don’t think the Chiefs offense has what it takes to keep up with what the Broncos are going to do. Professional handicapper Jason Lowry sees this one being relatively close at that beginning, but his NFL score predictions see the Broncos running away with it in the end. Denver 41 Kansas City 27. Take Denver to beat the NFL betting odds for this game.