NFL

Thursday Night Football Betting Preview: Who Can End Their Winless Streak?

Matt Kupferle  —  @MKupferle Oct 1st, 2020

Thursday Night Football opens Week 4, and we get an AFC clash between the Denver Broncos and New York Jets.

Let's dive into what we think could be some interesting betting angles for this contest.

Points Will Be Hard to Come By

If you are looking for some beautiful offensive football, you may may need to wait until this weekend for some points.

Taking a look at our power rankings, these are two teams that aren't particularly strong offensively as they both rank in the bottom four. The Jets have been outscored by a whopping 94-37 so far through their first three games, so it's clearly not going to be a boon of points.

Quarterback play could be a little bit ugly, too. Sam Darnold has been very poor for the Jets, racking up four interceptions against three touchdowns, and the Broncos are a mess under center. With Drew Lock is out injured, Jeff Driskel was a nightmare before turning things over to unproven commodity Brett Rypien. Oof.

Neither team seems to work with the utmost sense of urgency, either. As we look at pace, to put it kindly, these teams are pretty average. The Jets rank 14th in situation-neutral pace through three weeks (29.59 seconds), while Denver is not playing fast, either, at 30.44 seconds (19th).

Bets to Consider

Looking at oddsFire, the road Broncos are seeing a pile of coin come their way. 78% of bets and 75% of all cash has come in on the road Broncos.

Our algorithm likes Denver, too. We have them winning 52.1% of the time, making the moneyline a one-star wager.

For a prop bet to target, peep Noah Fant and his over/under of 42.5 yards. With so many weapons missing from the Denver attack, and Fant leading the team last week with 10 targets, this could be a great bet.

Historical Betting Trends

-- These two teams were fairly mediocre against-the-spread (ATS) in 2019, with the Broncos going 9-7 ATS and the Jets going 7-9 ATS.

-- The Broncos are absolutely brutal on the road, as they have lost five of their last six.

-- Surprisingly, the Jets have shown some strength ATS at home in the spooky month of October. They are 7-2 ATS in their last 9 games ATS at home in this month.

-- For something a little sneaky, look at the over. These two teams have combined to hit the over in six of their last seven games.