Systems, stats, trends and SDQL codes along with our top strategies and predictions for betting Sunday’s game between the San Diego Chargers vs. Denver Broncos
San Diego stretched its win streak to five in last week’s 27-10 victory over Cincinnati and that includes a 27-20 takedown of the Broncos in Week 15. This afternoon Philip Rivers will need an airtight gameplan to keep pace with a Broncos team who have scored an average of 35.9 points per game (PPG) at home the past two seasons. Some bettors were able to grab the underdog with 10 points earlier in the week but on Saturday the bookmakers shaved the odds down to Denver -8 which is where it currently sits. The total with online sportsbooks varies between 54 and 55 and we have two NFL picks for this game posted earlier at our Facebook site.
PICK SIXTY 1: Chargers – Broncos OVER 54 (available at the Greek)
PICK SIXTY 2: Chargers Team Total OVER 22.5 (-115)
The Chargers are 5-1 ATS with 4 overs and 2 unders in January road games since 2006 and getting this many points, seem like a good play. Divisional Round home faves of -7.5 to -9.5 are just 4-9 ATS since 2007 but those chalk teams did score 27.5 PPG and despite the wind, Peyton Manning’s offense looks more than capable of hitting that mark. Rather than taking the points, we felt like the value was on the team total and as we noted in this week’s Trends with Benefits, playoff home faves with a total more than 48 are 8-1 O/U when hosting a team on a hot streak.
500 MILE HIGH CLUB
The Broncos led the NFL in scoring this year with more than 600 total points and in the first two rounds of the playoffs these explosive teams have generated a record 10 overs and 3 unders the past 12 seasons. If it’s their first game of the post-season that record goes to 9-1 O/U (90-percent) with games averaging 59.1 points per game.
A lot of things have to go right for games to break 60 points but including last night’s 43-22 win by the Patriots, it has now happened 49 times this season. That’s up from 40 in 2012 and 35 per year in 2009 and 2010. The number of games to break 60 points in 2008 was 28 so you get where we’re coming from.