It can be argued that the defending Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs are not quite as good this season as they were last year. There is also a plausible case to be made that the Denver Broncos are not quite as bad this season as they were in 2022.
But, while those arguments have some evidence to support those claims, the truth is that Denver has lost four of five games this season and the Chiefs have won four of five. The Broncos are also winless in the point spread category with an 0-4-1 mark, while the Chiefs have won three of their five point spread decisions.
Then there is this, Kansas City has beaten their AFC West rivals 15 straight times, but in the last five meetings between these two teams the Broncos have beaten the point spread four times. Included in those four point spread wins for the Broncos were two victories against the number last year in a season in which Kansas City was destined to win the Super Bowl and the Broncos ended their campaign looking for a new head coach.
The Chiefs are at home tonight, and there is an historic advantage, particularly early in the season, for a home team on Thursday to own an edge. But that is a tough case to argue this year when the Thursday night results have favored the visitors. The Chiefs opened their campaign with a Thursday night home loss to the Detroit Lions and in the ensuing four Thursday night games home teams are 2-2 straight-up and 1-2-1 versus the point spread. The only Thursday night home team to win and cover this season was the San Francisco 49ers three weeks ago when they beat the hapless New York Giants, 30-12.
What we have here is a Broncos team that hasn’t beaten the Chiefs since 2015, but has stayed within the bloated point spreads in four of their last five meetings. Tonight, the line is double-digits favoring the defending champs at home.
Not interested in laying that many points in this divisional matchup.
So, does that put us on the Broncos?
No.
If Denver was ready to fire this season they would have followed up their only win of the year, two Sundays ago in Chicago, with a victory last week at Mile High Stadium over the Jets. They couldn’t get that done, and that throws caution into backing them this week against a Chiefs team that beat Chicago by 31 points the week before the Broncos needed a huge second half comeback to eke out a three point win, 31-28.
We go from a late game tonight to the ridiculously early 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time contest on Sunday morning from London when the Baltimore Ravens battle the Tennessee Titans. And while we don’t pick those early Sunday morning starts from London out of consideration for our clients, we’re not recommending a play on tonight’s game for the same reason.