The smart money: Betting on Broncos-Raiders

By Os Davis  |   Thursday, September 04, 2008  |  Comments( 15 )

Oakland Raiders
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Thursday (or, in Oakland Raiders Land, Monday night) sees the return of NFL football, and nothing says NFL football like Las Vegas lines. A brief consideration of merely a few proposition bets for the late, late show capping Week 1 between the Denver Broncos and Oakland Raiders. A “recommendation” is offered as well, imagining of course that sportsbook gambling were legal.

Over/under. The over/under for the game is at 41; combined with the line of plus-3 to the Raiders, this would imply a final score of 22-19.The potency of the Raider offense is currently unknown, of course, what with a rookie gamebreaker at halfback and essentially a brand spankin’ new QB. We do know that the Broncos, with their curious inability to deliver once inside the red zone, averaged exactly 20 points per game last season. Returning with essentially the same offense and improvement expected from Jay Cutler, Denver should be scoring at least three TDs per game; on the other hand, Oakland’s potentially dominant passing ‘D’ could torment Cutler & Co. in Week 1. The bet: Take the under and figure these two teams to grind it out on Monday night.

First scoring play. The odds-on favorite here is a Denver Bronco touchdown at 13/8, chased by an Oakland Raider TD (9/4) and a Bronco field goal (5/2). Is betting on a Raider touchdown as first score worth the risk? At 72 percent higher payoff, you bet! After all, they’ll be playing this one in the Black Hole, baby! Further (though these particular odds don’t exist), smart money says the first Raider score will be a running TD, but hedging on any one head of the Oakland rushers’ Cerberus would be foolhardy. The bet: Raider touchdown.

First score of game. For the truly gutsy, “any other score” (read: safety) is going off here at 33/1. (Does anyone in fact know when a team’s first score of the year was a safety? Or of any Week 1 game that started 2-0?) Gotta go with the conservative, low-paying pick here, though. The bet: Touchdown, at 4/6 odds.

Either team to score three times unanswered. Now, they say there’s no such thing as certainty in betting football – “That’s why they call it gambling,” says the old dude raking your chips again – these odds are odd indeed. Ol’ Bet365 has odds of 10/17 on either team scoring on three consecutive drives, while the negative is going off at 13/10. Considering that Vegas has a 22-19 final score forecast, this scenario seems pretty unlikely at best; the obvious situation here would seem to be scoring in two drives before the half (with the second probably coming on a late field goal) and a third score when play resumes. While the explosiveness of the Oakland offense is yet to be proven in any real sense, here’s to thinking that the Raider ‘D’ won’t allow the Broncos' offense to merely have its way. The bet: Just say “no.”

Either team to score in the final two minutes of the first half. Appropriately enough in tandem with the above, the “yes” here is listed at an incredible 20/43; given the amount of weird risk in a Week 1 contest, that’s hardly worth the bet. Who’s to say Matt Prater won’t shank his first clutch kick ever in replacing legendary Jason Elam? Who’s to say that either of these offense could stall altogether in the first 30 minutes, giving us a halftime score of, say, 7-6? Ah, the uncertainty of opening day ... The bet: Don’t even touch this one.

Exact outcome of game. Naturally, the low-paying end of this scale has a close game. The Broncos winning by six points or fewer gets odds of 7/2, with a Bronco win of seven to 12 points paying out at 4/1. Likewise, a Raider win by six or fewer points is also offered at 4/1. (Incidentally, a tie is going off at a huge 80/1. Who makes this bet? Does anyone ever win on such a prop?)

Pointspread: Raiders plus-3. Nobody knows for sure of course (“That’s why they calls it gambling, heh heh heh...”), but this observer thinks conventional wisdom on most of the AFC West teams going into 2008 is, um, slightly skewed. If someone can explain exactly how last year’s unimpressive, disappointing Broncos are this year’s playoff threat after doing little more in the offseason than signing Dylan Gandy and releasing Travis Henry, please do. Expecting Oakland to stagnate at 4-12 despite its own improvements is shortsighted and unimaginative, considering the nice moves the Raiders have made in the past couple of seasons.

Now armed with Darren McFadden and Michael Bush 2.0 (not to mention sweet run-blocking TE Zach Miller), the Raider attack should be deadly against a porous Denver rushing ‘D’ which finished 30th in run yardage allowed. Teams ran at will against the Broncos in 2007 – Denver saw the run a crazy 501 times last season, good for third worst in the NFL – so expect more of the same from Oakland’s threesome on Monday night. On the defensive side, the Raiders get a chance to induce a little fear around the league with that stacked secondary of Nnamdi Asomugha, DeAngelo Hall, Gibril Wilson and Michael Huff, among others, by terrorizing the Brandon Marshall-less Cutler. The bets: Raiders plus-3; Raiders win by 1-6 points.

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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's...
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CommentsComments: 15  |  Sign Up  View all comments
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No.1
Raidehz		02:18 AM
09/04/2008
****ANYBODY GOING TO THE GAME?**** Should be a blast! I for one am staying home. I'll be watching you guys whoopin' it up. I...
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No.2
06:28 AM
09/04/2008
I think we can beat Denver too. Last year we win at home by 14 points (20 - 34), and lose in Denver by only 3 points with a last...
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No.3
The Shape		06:44 AM
09/04/2008
26-17 Raiders topple the Donkeys. Raiders rush for 230 yards with McFadden getting his first 100 yard game of the season. Fargas...
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