Can Denver Broncos Close the Gap to World Champion Kansas City?

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While bettors around the Centennial State have had little outside of European soccer to wager on since online sports betting was legalized May 1 (see all legal in Colorado betting apps for iPhone and Android), the Premier League and Bundelsliga have  been just a warm up for what is coming over the next few weeks.

Joining Manchester United and Bayern Munich will be Major League Baseball Thursday, then the NBA (July 30) and NHL (August 1) the following week.

But of course, the most wagered sport over the years has been football, and the NFL is set to return in September.

How it will look is still under debate, with COVID-19 still wreaking havoc on plans. However, it looks like training camps will open on July 28, with preseason games possibly scrapped altogether before Opening Night Thursday, September 10.

One team that comes into the 2020 season with some buzz is the Denver Broncos. The Broncos went 7-9 last year after a brutal start (0-4, 2-6, 3-8), winning four of five to end the campaign with Drew Lock under center. Amazingly, Denver lost three of its first eight games by two points, and four of its nine losses were by four points or less.

When Lock took over in Week 13, the Broncos finished on a tear, averaging 26 points per game in the four wins, with the only loss coming to Kansas City (23-3).

Of course, the Broncos have to make up ground in the AFC West before they can even think about a potential run in the playoffs. Kansas City is the defending Super Bowl champion, and came within an overtime loss in January 2019 of possibly coming into this season as two-time defending champions.

The Chiefs are almost certainly going to win the division if Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes stays healthy, and the odds on Bet MGM reflect that: Kansas City is -455 to win the AFC West, with the Chargers (+800), Broncos (+900), and Raiders (+1200) coming in way back.

But the race for second in the division is an intriguing one. The Chargers (+195) are slight favorites over Denver (+220).

One of the cooler things about the Bet MGM app is the specials that are specific to each team. The Broncos page has some interesting wagers available.

If you think Denver is going to tear it up out of the gate and go 4-0 in its first four games (Titans H 9/14, Steelers A 9/20, Bucs H 9/27, Jets A 10/1), you can get odds of +1600. Conversely, if you believe there will be a repeat of 2019, when the Broncos started off 0-4, Bet MGM offers odds of +800.

If you want a more risky bet, you can get odds of +100000 on the Broncos winning all of their road games, which would mean a $10 play would return a handsome $10010.

The Week One odds against Tennessee, which is the last game of the opening weekend on Monday night at 8:10 p.m. MDT, currently see the Broncos as a -2 favorite and -125 on the money line, with an over/under of 42.

PREDICTIONS

As a fan of the Broncos, I am cautiously optimistic about how they will do this season.

Can the Broncos go from 7-9 to above .500? You will get some good value wagering on them to win 9-12 games, so I will take a shot with that at +200.

While it might not be as good as this prediction of 11-5, there is definitely a chance Denver has one or two more games go its way in 2020, especially with Lock under center all year, and with the weapons around him now. Exactly nine wins with BetMGM might be worth a shot as well at +390, as is the over 7.5 wins at -139.

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