Justin Tucker buried our hopes of going 4-1 with my upset picks this season, when he drilled a game-winning field goal down the middle of the uprights on Sunday Night Football.
The Bengals last-second loss moves my upset record to 3-2, but the beauty of underdog moneyline bets is that it still leaves us profitable as we head into Week 6.
But, with that being said, it’s time to get back to winning. For the second straight week, I’m looking at a prime time game, but this time I’m looking at Monday Night Football.
Give me the Denver Broncos to upset the Los Angeles Chargers.
Broncos +205 vs. Chargers
As of writing this article, the best place in New York to place your wager on this is DraftKings, who is offering the Broncos moneyline at +205.
A lot of people are going to disagree with this bet, but hear me out.
The public perception of the Chargers is way higher than it should be. They were a dark horse Super Bowl pick in the offseason, but through the first five weeks, the statistics are telling a completely different story.
Sure, their offense is “good”. Notice how I didn’t say “great”, it’s good and let’s leave it at that.
The main reason I like this bet is the Broncos defense is league’s above the Chargers defense. The most clear example of this is opponent yards per play. The Broncos rank 6th in the NFL in opponent yards per play, allowing just 4.7 yards per snap, while the Chargers rank 28th in opponent yards per play, allowing 6.1 yards per snap.
That’s a difference of 1.4 opponent yards per snap of the football. That’s a massive difference.
The Broncos defense doesn’t get the credit it deserves, especially their secondary. Heading into Week 6, the Broncos rank second in the NFL in opponent yards per pass attempt, allowing just 5.2 yards per throw. Only the Eagles (5.0) are better in that area.
Well, 74.59% of the offensive yards gained by the Chargers this season come through the air, that’s the fourth highest mark in the NFL. This makes it an extremely bad stylistic matchup for this Chargers offense.
You can attack the Broncos defense on the ground, as the Raiders showed in Week 4. Denver ranks 20th in opponent yards per carry, allowing 4.7 yards per rush. Well, the Chargers rank 26th in yards per carry, allowing just 3.9 yards per rush attempt.
That tells me that Los Angeles isn’t going to be able to target and exploit the weakness of the Broncos defense. Instead, they’re going to try to attack them through the air, which is a terrible proposition.
Then we can talk about the Broncos offense. Yes, they’re averaging just 15.0 points per game, which ranks 31st in the NFL. But, if you dive into the numbers a little bit, you’ll see their low-scoring is largely due to their red zone performance.
They actually rank 18th in overall yards per play, which is better than what the box scores might indicate. The issue, as I mentioned, is that they rank dead last in the NFL in red zone touchdown percentage, finding the end zone on just 21.43% of red zone trips.
I refuse to believe those numbers will remain that bad. We have to see some positive regression in that area, and now they take on a Chargers defense that ranks 19th in opponent red zone touchdown percentage.
Styles make fights, my friends, and the numbers are telling me the Broncos hold the stylistic advantage on Monday Night Football. They are my upset pick of the week.
Be sure to head over to BetSided to see the rest of my plays for this weekend’s NFL slate.