Denver Broncos vs. Oakland Raiders: Pick and Preview
In a battle of AFC West foes, the Denver Broncos (9-3) will take a short trip West to battle the Oakland Raiders (3-9) at the O.co Coliseum in Oakland, CA on Thursday Night Football. Denver, having already wrapped up the AFC West division title, will wrap up their season series against the Raiders after defeating them in week 4 in Denver, 37-6. The line on this game opened up as Denver being a ten point favorite and it still sits at that number Thursday afternoon.
With the AFC crown in their back pocket, Denver will now be looking to gain the number one or number two seed heading into the playoffs. They should be able to win this game, but the question is can they cover the ten point spread?
Here is our Thursday Night Football Pick and Preview for Week 14, betting line is courtesy of betus.com/pa:
Denver -10 over OAKLAND
Usually I love a home-underdog who is getting double-digit points, but this is the Oakland Raiders we’re talking about. The Raiders have lost four of their last five games by double-digits, and if it wasn’t for a garbage time touchdown last week as time expired, they would of lost by ten. The good news for the home team is that a home underdog of ten or more points has covered fifteen of the past sixteen games, small sample size, but a good stat for anyone looking for a reason to take Oakland with the points.
In their last meeting in week 4 Denver was only a 6 1/2 point favorite at home, at that time Oakland was coming off of a shocking win against the Pittsburgh Steelers, while the Broncos were losers of two straight, albeit against the Atlanta Falcons and the Houston Texans. So the six and a half points were justified, by the way the Broncos won 37-6 and covered easily.
This time around Denver is flying high under Peyton Manning and has shown no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
It’s hard to bet against Manning and the Broncos at this point in the season and it’s even harder to come up with a reason to back the lowly Raiders. I’m always worried about a back-door cover in big spreads like this one, so if you’re going to bet on this game, I’d actually buy 1/2 point to get it down to Denver -9 1/2 just to be safe.
I’ll take Denver to win and cover, 34-19.
