NFL Football Betting: Jacksonville Jaguars at Denver Broncos

By BetOnline September 27, 2019

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The Jacksonville Jaguars have one of the more interesting young quarterbacks in the NFL in Gardner Minshew. They’re fresh off a franchise-revitalizing win over the Tennessee Titans last Thursday night. With 10 days to prepare, can they keep their momentum going in Mile High against a Denver Broncos team that’s yet to win a game this season?

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS AT DENVER BRONCOS
NFL ODDS: BRONCOS -3
NFL TOTAL: 39

WHY THE JAGUARS WILL COVER THE SPREAD

The Jaguars will cover the spread because Denver is simply a bad team. The Broncos have not scored more than 16 points in any of their games this season. While it’s true that Joe Flacco hasn’t looked terrible – he’s completing 69.1% of his passes, which is the best mark of his career – he isn’t exactly carrying this team to wins. The problem is he doesn’t have a great cast of receivers around him and he’s behind a bad offensive line Garret Bolles has played poorly and when a high-profile draft pick becomes a bust, that sets back an organization. It also doesn’t help that free agent Ja’Waun James, the high-prized tackle the team signed in the offseason, is hurt.

The Jacksonville Jaguars sacked Tennessee Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota nine times last week and should be licking their chops at an immobile Flacco this week. The Jaguars and Calais Campbell are playing extremely well on defense. Keep in mind that they limited the Houston Texans to 13 points in Week 2, so this unit is clicking.

WHY THE BRONCOS WILL COVER THE SPREAD

Gardner Minshew is talented, but he is young, and it is unwise to expect him to be consistently good. He scored only 12 points for the Jaguars in Week 2 against Houston in his first career start and the Jaguars scored only six total points in the final three quarters of last week’s win over Tennessee. The Jaguars’ offense looks a lot better with Minshew than many people expected after Nick Foles got hurt, but that doesn’t mean the Jacksonville offense is reliable in general. Receiver Dede Westbrook dropped some very catchable passes last week against Tennessee, including one in the end zone. Only D.J. Chark has been especially consistent among the Jaguars’ receivers. On top of that, the Jags have a lousy ground game, so they have to go on the road here and probably win it with their rookie quarterback.

The other point to make here is that Denver’s defense has been solid – not great, but hardly terrible. The Broncos haven’t allowed more than 27 points in any of their three games. They have allowed an average of 22 points per game and keep in mind that’s without any turnovers or sacks. That’s bound to change given the players that they have like Von Miller and Bradley Chubb.

TAKING A LOOK AT THE TOTAL

This is a tough game to predict who’ll win but it feels like we can have more confidence with the under. The Jaguars are going up against a decent defense and their running game just isn’t great these days. As for the Broncos, their offensive line and offense is struggling, averaging just 15.3 points per game. This should be a low-scoring affair and an under.