Kansas City Chiefs -3 @ Denver Broncos
Our power ranking work makes the Chiefs on the road in week 7 to be 3.5-5 points better than the Broncos. As such, we are laying the field goal and backing Mahomes and crew to snap their two-game skid and collect the cover at Empower Field at Mile High Thursday.
In addition to the indication from our power rankings work, we note that home dogs have struggled versus the number historically under the bright lights of primetime NFL action.
Home dogs are an even worse 48-64-3 (43%) ATS facing their division in NFL evening games over this stretch.
Separately, we noted last year that public bettors have demonstrated a reasonably consistent stint of prescience durings weeks 7 through 12. In fact, we have noticed a positive correlation, since 2003, between the extent of public support and cover rates during this period we have dubbed 'the belly' of the NFL season.
As of the time of this writing, The Action Network reports 78% of spread wagers are down on Kansas City. This level of embrace by the ATS wagering populace at this point in the football year is consistent with a very high historical cover rate.
Finally, our friends at the Action Network have highlighted the Chiefs' superlative ATS record on the road under Andy Reid. Kansas City has been the best bet in professional football from this spot since Reid assumed the helm in 2013, good for a 30% return on investment.
This year the Chiefs are one of only three teams that average better than 10 points more away than at home (Baltimore and Chicago are the others). Kansas City ranked first by this measure last season too. The consistency of this tendency into this year suggests to us that the Chiefs are indeed likely to continue to post bigger figures on the road tonight than we have seen at home over the last two weeks.
Bottom line: We acknowledge that our backing the Chiefs for the rebound win and cover this evening pits us on the 'wrong' side of this sharps vs. squares showdown. However, we are OK with this reality given 1) the signal from our primary, power rankings framework in favor of the Kansas City ATS win, 2) the big picture trends supporting road favorites in primetime action 3) the extreme level of public support for the Chiefs, at a time in the season where the wisdom of the crowd tends to rule and 4) Andy Reid's and Kansas City's general road readiness, which has shown no signs of waning this year.
Happy betting!!