00:00What are you going to, what is your perception, Joe,
00:04of why this number was five and a half
00:07and has been shifted all the way now to three and a half?
00:11Because now every mush and everybody believes
00:15that Jared Stidham could be like Nick Foles
00:17and potentially Jeff Hostetler back in the day
00:20for the New York Giants.
00:22And that is the concern that I have back in the side.
00:25I still lean to Denver because they are nine and one at home.
00:29They've dominated opponents.
00:31They were able to dominate multiple teams
00:34throughout the regular season, beat Green Bay.
00:37The only loss came at the hands of Jacksonville.
00:40Jacksonville is a three and a half point favorite.
00:42But other than that, and outside that game
00:44against Josh Allen last week,
00:46they have been a dominant home team defensively as well.
00:50So I think when you look at that
00:52and you look at this matchup against Drake May
00:54and his first career road start in the playoffs,
00:58that is a cause of concern.
01:00I still like the total, Kev.
01:03I do.
01:04I think both offenses will look to push tempo.
01:07I'm not concerned about that.
01:08We're not talking 48 and a half, 49.
01:10We're talking 43 and a half,
01:13up from 41 and a half when it opened.
01:14I am a little concerned about how much people
01:19are buying into Stidham.
01:21I think he could play well.
01:22But now this over-speculation about where he's the second coming,
01:28he might even be better than Bo Nix,
01:30is completely ridiculous.
01:32Yeah, I think that that is fair.
01:34So I think what happened, right, to be,
01:38I don't know if nerdy is the word, right,
01:41but what they were not going to do,
01:45you know, to give mention to our guy Dave Sharapan, right,
01:50who, of course, on the network always, you know,
01:52talked through these situations with us.
01:54They did not want the first big bet to come in on the favorite.
01:59Then they really messed up.
02:00If they opened this up and they just got smashed with New England,
02:03they were in a bad spot.
02:05Because the public perception is going to be fade the team
02:09with a backup quarterback.
02:11And if you look at the splits that are available,
02:13the public splits, Joe,
02:15that money is still coming in on New England.
02:18But these big bets, right,
02:21what would be considered the sharp bets,
02:24they are taking these points with the Broncos
02:27due to something that I think we laid out from the jump
02:33and I think is pretty easy for anyone to understand.
02:38What would this number have been if Bo Nix was playing?
02:42Denver would have been a favorite.
02:45I don't think there's any way to suggest otherwise.
02:48Considering Denver was close as a favorite against Buffalo,
02:52Buffalo, not that long ago,
02:54went to New England, booked his favorites.
02:56And what that meant is the move from Nix to Stidham
03:02was a touchdown, a touchdown plus.
03:05That's just not how point spreads work, simply.
03:11Like, the gap from Josh Allen to Jared Stidham,
03:15they typically would tell you is a touchdown.
03:18Like, if it was Josh Allen and Buffalo who won
03:21and then all of a sudden Mitch Trubisky was starting Joe,
03:24that would move about a touchdown.
03:26It's not the gap between Nix and Stidham.
03:28So the books have kind of been settled in
03:30on a lot of this money publicly from New England.
03:33The big singular bets are coming in on Denver,
03:36but we now have a three and a half number here
03:39where that hook has still been left available on this side.
03:44I will say, as somebody who has a future position
03:48involving the Broncos getting to the Super Bowl,
03:51I don't feel it necessary to get back in on the Denver Broncos,
03:57but I still really like the Denver Broncos in this game
04:00because we're spending all this time talking about the quarterback.
04:04They are an elite defense, a super, super elite defense
04:09who can give the New England Patriots a world of trouble in this matchup.
04:16And as long as Stidham, Kevin, doesn't turn the football over,
04:21that's the biggest thing.
04:22If he's not going to be turnover prone
04:24and he's more of a game manager and distributes the football
04:27to Marvin Mims and Sutton and all of those weapons on the outside,
04:32Lil Jordan Humphrey, they're going to be fine.
04:35You know, assuming that their defense doesn't have major lapses.
04:39Now, I do feel the way to attack Denver is on the ground.
04:43I do feel that Travion Henderson is the best back to do that today.
04:47We could dive into that a little bit later,
04:49but that's the way to attack it to take the pressure off of Drake May.
04:54He has been turnover prone himself
04:56against a very good defense last week in Houston.
04:59He plays like that.
05:01That game is up for grabs then, right?
05:03You know, it comes down to turnover margin.
05:06Who wins it and who can run the football just a little bit better?
05:09But you also have a dominant home team that only has one loss on the year.
05:13A majority of their wins, Kevin, have been by 10-plus points per game.
05:17That's what you're seeing right now.
05:19I mean, I still lean to Denver.
05:21Don't like it as much, obviously, at 3-1⁄2 as I do 4-1⁄2 and 5-1⁄2,
05:26but I still like Denver to potentially be in this game.
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