As the NFL season inches closer and closer to the playoffs, divisional matchups that once looked inconsequential take on season-defining meaning. Thursday night’s showdown between the Denver Broncos and the Los Angeles Chargers is one such example.
The Broncos, thought to be one of the AFC’s weaker units prior to the season, have put together an excellent campaign behind rookie quarterback Bo Nix. The former Oregon Duck has led his team to a 9-5 record, good for the sixth seed in the conference.
The Chargers fielded similarly low expectations during the preseason, only to earn an 8-6 record and a tenuous hold on the final AFC playoff seed through fifteen weeks. While the AFC West crown is out of reach thanks to the excellence of the Kansas City Chiefs, Thursday night’s matchup holds major postseason implications for each team in what should be a highly competitive contest. The Broncos will enter the game as 2.5-point underdogs, with the over-under set at 42.5.
Broncos Look to Continue Their Stampede
Denver head coach Sean Payton has his team rolling in its recent outings. The Broncos have won four straight games, each coming by a margin of multiple scores. The highlight of that four-game run that has Denver primed for a playoff position has been the excellent performance of coordinator Vance Joseph’s defense.
Led by All-World cornerback Patrick Surtain II, the unit has notched seven interceptions and 14 sacks in a month’s worth of games in addition to three defensive touchdowns. Most recently, Denver held Indianapolis Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson to well under 200 passing yards while forcing a couple of interceptions. Richardson had been playing his best football of the season heading into that matchup with the Broncos, and the defense seemed to revert him to the early-season version of himself. A similar performance against a struggling Chargers offense is not only possible, but likely.
Thursday night is an inopportune time for the Chargers to run into a defensive unit playing its best football. Los Angeles, despite a tremendous amount of talent distributed throughout the offensive lineup, has struggled to put points on the board lately. They have been held under 20 points in three consecutive weeks, including last week by a Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense that allows an average of 357 yards per game to opponents.
Quarterback Justin Herbert has made fantastic plays throughout the season, but a lackluster receiving corps led by rookie Ladd McConkey has been a consistent source of frustration. Former first-rounder Quentin Johnston has been one of the most inconsistent starting receivers in the NFL, and the depth beyond those two is nothing to write home about. The running game has been absolutely atrocious since the loss of starting back J.K. Dobbins, as backups Gus Edwards and Kimani Vidal have failed to make any meaningful impact.
Denver’s defense should be able to continue its recent successes against a team that is struggling to get anything going offensively.
Chargers Aim For A Necessary Spark
Despite their recent offensive struggles, there is reason to believe that the Chargers will pull an offensive rabbit out of the hat against their old divisional foe. McConkey‘s return from injury against the Buccaneers included five catches, one of which took the young pass-catcher into the end zone.
He enters Thursday night’s game without an injury designation, indicating a clean bill of health and the potential for an even more productive sixty minutes than Sunday provided. A good performance from McConkey becomes even more likely when considering the absence of one of Denver’s starting cornerbacks, Riley Moss.
Moss, who was in the midst of a solid, if unremarkable campaign, went down with an ankle injury in Week 12. The Broncos would proceed to give up nearly 500 yards passing to Jameis Winston and the Cleveland Browns, yardage that was given in chunks by Levi Wallace and Damarri Mathis, Moss’s replacements. There is a clear weakness on Denver’s defense, one that was already proven to be exploitable by a worse passer than Herbert.
Aside from Week 14’s debacle against the Buccaneers, Los Angeles has been one of the more reliable defensive teams in the NFL. Head coach Jim Harbaugh’s unit has only allowed 25 touchdowns all season, the second-least in the entire league.
The Broncos were responsible for two of those scores in the first meeting between these teams, but otherwise struggled to move the ball throughout the contest. Nix was held to 216 passing yards and turned the ball over once, while the run game was largely ineffective. It helps that Nix, while producing big numbers, has struggled to keep the ball in Bronco hands lately. The Colts managed three interceptions while the Browns notched another two.
Los Angeles fields a better, more complicated defense than both of those teams, a defense that should succeed in forcing a single turnover at the very least.
Final Pick
Divisional games are always a dangerous beast, particularly late in the season. Regardless, there’s too much to like about the Chargers here. Los Angeles is on their home turf against a team they have beaten already this season. The defense should rebound after getting torched on Sunday against a turnover-prone rookie quarterback, and the offense will exploit a vulnerability opposite Patrick Surtain. It will be close, but there is value on the Chargers at -148 on the money line.
Final Pick: Los Angeles Chargers ML (-148)
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