Sure, Kansas City is a bad football team. But Denver has no business laying this many points on the road. Take the Chiefs and the points when they host the Broncos.

As bad as Kansas City has been so far this season, it is still not wise to lay more than a touchdown on the road in the NFL, especially against teams with horrible records (more reason for the road favorite to letdown). Winless home underdogs of more than seven points are 45-24-2 ATS since 1980 and Kansas City also applies to an 84-40-3 ATS home underdog situation that plays on bad teams.

Kansas City Chiefs +10 to cover vs. Denver Broncos

Denver, meanwhile, applies to a very negative 27-72-1 ATS road letdown situation following two high-scoring close victories over San Diego and New Orleans. The Broncos are also just 5-21 ATS as a favorite of more than 3 points following a win in the post-John Elway era.

Kansas City also gets a lift offensively with Damon Huard back at quarterback replacing Tyler Thigpen, who goes down on the list of all-time worst starting quarterbacks. Thigpen completed just 41% of his passes for a horrendous 3.2 yards per pass play and Huard should be a couple of yards per pass play better than that given his career 5.5 yppp average, which is also his average since the beginning of last season. Huard also has a history of taking care of the football, as evidenced by his career 2.7% interception percentage (3.2% is about average and Thigpen threw 4 picks on 69 passes (5.8%)).

Denver’s defense has been horrible so far, as the Broncos have allowed 7.0 yards per play to teams that would combine to average 5.8 yppl against an average team. The Chiefs are capable of scoring a decent number of points with Huard at quarterback but the Chiefs’ defense has allowed 6.1 yppl to three mediocre or bad offensive teams (NE, Oak, Atl) and the Broncos have been lighting it up offensively (6.9 yppl against teams that would allow 5.5 yppl to an average team).

My ratings favor Denver by 10½ points and using this year’s games only would favor the Broncos by 11½ points (after adjusting for Huard at quarterback for KC). The lack of line value will keep me from making the Chiefs a best bet, but I clearly lean with the big home dog here and I’d consider Kansas City a strong opinion at +10 points or more.

Prediction: Denver-28 Kansas City-23

Free Pick: Chiefs +10 or more

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