He’s been tucked away on the shelf, and now he’s being asked to come in cold and spark the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship Game.
No, not Jarrett Stidham.
Running back J.K. Dobbins. He has been out with a foot injury since Nov. 6 but returned to practice this week. He has been sorely missed, as rookie RJ Harvey has a total of 91 yards rushing on 35 carries in the past three games. Dobbins led the Broncos in rushing in the regular season despite missing seven games. Not only is he a more decisive runner than Harvey, but also Dobbins has a higher percentage of explosive rushes (11 percent to 3 percent) and a lower percentage of rushes for no gain or a loss (14 to 21).
It got us thinking. We picked the Los Angeles Rams to win the Super Bowl before the playoffs began — we’re sticking with that — but in the AFC, we think people are overreacting to the Bo Nix injury news. The Broncos would surely be favored by a couple of points at home if he were playing, and now they’re five-point underdogs?!? I’m not sure Nix’s mom thinks he is worth seven points against the spread.
We’re definitely taking the points … and maybe even the upset at +210. The New England Patriots had a historically easy schedule, then got a Los Angeles Chargers team with a turnstile offensive line in the first round and faced C.J. (stands for Careless Juggler) Stroud last week. They’ll finally get tested here, against a No. 1 seed that gets to play the no-respect card as the largest home underdog in a conference championship since 1968, per Pro Football Reference.
And there’s some value with Stidham …
Last week’s record: 2-2 against the spread, 0-1 on best bets
Season record: 138-136-8 against the spread, 48-47 on best bets
All odds are from BetMGM and are locked when the pick was made. Click here for live odds.
New England Patriots (-5) at Denver Broncos | 3 p.m. ET Sunday, CBS
A great matchup between two pretty good coaches. There’s the Patriots’ Mike Vrabel, tied for the longest-tenured coach in the AFC East, who is finally carrying his weight after Drake Maye carried Vrabel’s defense the first 16 weeks. There’s the Broncos’ Sean Payton, who was almost smirking after he announced that Nix was out for the season — he feels backup QB Stidham is going to let it rip and surprise some people Sunday.
Not me. I was in the house for Stidham’s two starts with the Las Vegas Raiders in 2022. He can sling it. Think of him as a dirt-poor man’s Brett Favre. Stidham has some swagger and loves to throw the ball into tight windows — he has eight touchdowns and eight interceptions in four career starts. And while he is no Nix, he can run it better than people give him credit for. Stidham won’t be the reason the Broncos lose, as long as Dobbins and even Harvey keep the Patriots’ defense honest.
The Patriots hit the road for the first time in the playoffs, and there will be some pressure on Maye. The second-year QB has already fumbled six times in the playoffs, losing three, and he actually leads the league with 14 on the season. Eleven of those were on strip sacks, tying Matt Ryan (2022) for the most since 2020.
As we mentioned last week (when we picked the Bills and — sigh — they missed covering by only two points despite five turnovers), the once-feared Broncos defense has had some serious slippage the past seven weeks. But … Denver can still get after the quarterback. It has 71 sacks — 14 more than anybody else — in 18 games, and even ranks fourth in pressure rate when not blitzing. Patriots left tackle Will Campbell, meanwhile, has not been the same since coming back from a knee injury, allowing four sacks and 10 pressures in the past two games.
That’s enough for me. There’s also this: Home underdogs of 4 or more points in the playoffs are 9-0 ATS in the past 50 years.
The pick: Broncos
Los Angeles Rams at Seattle Seahawks (-2.5) | 6 p.m. ET Sunday, Fox
The Seahawks hammered the 49ers last week, and their defense is the first to rank in the top two in both yards per rush and yards per pass allowed since the 2015 Super Bowl champ Broncos. Too bad they have to face the Rams.
The teams split their two regular-season meetings, but the Rams won the first game and led 30-14 in the fourth quarter of the second. They forced Sam Darnold to throw six interceptions. It’s a little sad how everyone is waiting for Darnold to crumble, but he does have eight interceptions when pressured this season, tied for most in the NFL.
Darnold has been leaning on his defense, but this is not a good matchup for the Seahawks. Puka Nacua had 19 catches for 300 yards in the two games — the most yards by any player against any single opponent across the league all season — and the mighty Seahawks defense also didn’t sack Matthew Stafford once.
Davante Adams is back for this one, after the Rams scored four touchdowns out of three-tight-end formations in his absence in the last matchup. Only one of those was actually caught by a tight end, but the Seahawks rank 27th in EPA per target to tight ends (-0.4), worst among any team to win a playoff game.
Plus, if you go back to when Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald was the Baltimore Ravens’ defensive coordinator, the Rams under coach Sean McVay are averaging 28 points per game in five meetings against Macdonald’s defenses. Macdonald has otherwise allowed 18 points per game with the Seahawks and 17 with the Ravens.
This also now feels like a battle-tested Rams team after two close wins in the playoffs, and it won’t be fazed at all by playing in Seattle. The Rams have won there in each of the past three seasons.
The pick: Rams
Best bet: We’ll go with the Rams again after they failed to cover by half a point for us last week.
— TruMedia research courtesy of Jason Starrett.
