Jets Broncos Line

Written by Steve Janus

This Thursday the Denver Broncos will host the New York Jets in battle between two teams looking to stay in the hunt in their respective divisions. The Broncos improved to 4-5 with a 17-10 win at Kansas City on Sunday, and are now just a game back of Oakland for the AFC West lead. The Jets will be looking to bounce back from a 16-37 loss to New England on Sunday Night Football. New York is just a game back of the Patriots in the AFC East at 5-4 overall, but their two losses to New England will make it very hard for them to win the division. These two teams played at Denver last season with the Jets holding on for a 24-20 win.

Taking a look at the week 11 NFL spreads, oddsmakers currently have the Jets favored by 4.5-points over the Broncos with the total set at 41 points.

New York Jets:

The Jets came into the game against the Patriots riding a 3-game winning streak, but they couldn’t do much of anything right against Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. The Jets finished with 378 yards of total offense, but turned it over three times, including an interception that was returned for a touchdown. The Jets now have to go on the road and face a quickly improving Denver team on a short week. New York won 27-11 at Buffalo back in week 9, but are just 1-3 on the road this season.

Mark Sanchez finished with 306 passing yards and a touchdown in the loss, but was intercepted twice and sacked five times. When the Jets have to rely on Sachez to drop back and throw 39 times, this team is going to have a hard time winning games.

I know the Jets were forced to throw the ball once New England opened up a big lead in the second half, but I believe they really abandoned the running game before they had to. Shonn Greene averaged 4.7 ypg, but finished with just 61 yards on 13 attempts. If this team is going to get back to being one of the top teams in the AFC, they have to start getting more out of the running game.

Denver held Kansas City to just 258 yards of total offense last week, and appear more than capable of slowing down the Jets offensive attack. Denver has been solid against the run, allowing just 110 on average over their last four games, and have shown the ability to put pressure on the quarterback with 12 sacks over the same stretch of games.

Denver Broncos:

While the fans cried and begged for Tebow to take over as the starting quarterback, many experts believed the Broncos were giving up on their season when they made the move . So far that hasn’t been the case at all. Tebow has Denver believing they can win the AFC West after three wins in four starts.

Tebow completed just two passes for 69 yards in the win over the Chiefs, but he arguably won the game with his 56-yard touchdown strike to Eric Decker in the fourth quarter. While Tebow has had a miserable time throwing the ball, he has turned Denver into one of the more feared rushing attacks in the NFL. Denver rushed for 244 yards, despite Knowshon Moreno and Willis McGahee both going down with injuries. Lance Ball carried it 30 times for 96 yards, while Tebow had 43 yards and a touchdown on nine attempts.

The big question is can the Broncos rushing attack have that same kind of success against the Jets. While New York was torched for 389 yards in their loss to New England, only 60 of those yards came on the ground. The Jets haven’t allowed more than 96 rushing yards in each of their last three games.

Betting Trends:

New York is 23-8 ATS off a home loss against a division rival since 1992.

Denver is 5-14 ATS after playing their last game on the road over the last 3 seasons.

Be sure to stop back and check out who Steve Janus has picked to win this week in the NFL.

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