Bovada Wild Card NFL Odds: Denver Broncos Host Pittsburgh Steelers
Sunday, January 08, 2012
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The Denver Broncos didn’t close the season like a playoff team, and Tim Tebow didn’t end the year looking like an NFL quarterback, but the Broncos and Tebow are AFC West champions despite an 8-8 record and will host 12-4 Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday afternoon in the final game of wild-card weekend. The Steelers are 9-point favorites on Bovada Sportsbook’s NFL playoffs odds with the total at 34.5, easily the lowest of the weekend.
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The Steelers look like vastly the better team, but they will be missing three key players this week. Starting running back Rashard Mendenhall is out for the season after tearing his ACL in the Week 17 13-9 win over Cleveland. Isaac Redman, who had 92 yards and a score on 19 carries last week – but also two fumbles – is now the featured back. Safety Ryan Clark, the leading tackler on the NFL’s No. 1 defense, won’t play because of a rare sickle-cell trait that could be life-threatening in the altitude of Denver. And All-Pro center Maurkice Pouncey aggravated an injury in practice this week and will sit.
In addition, Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger is nowhere near 100 percent from a high-ankle sprain suffered in a Dec. 8 game against Cleveland. He finished that game and played Dec. 19 in San Francisco, a 20-3 loss. Then Big Ben sat out a week before playing all of Week 17. In his past two games, a gimpy Roethlisberger has completed 48 of 84 passes for 551 yards, no touchdowns and three interceptions with ratings of 52.3 and 73.0, well below his career mark of 92.1.
The Broncos are healthy coming in but they lost their final three games, and Tebow looked terrible in all three. The Broncos lost 7-3 at home to Kansas City in Week 17 – but backed into the AFC West title with Oakland losing – and Tebow was 6 of 22 passing for 60 yards with an interception.
Tebow's completion percentage dropped from 48.9 in his first eight starts to 41.1 in his final three, and he threw four interceptions in those three games, compared to two the rest of the season. He goes against a Pittsburgh defense that is also No. 1 against the pass and in points allowed. Denver does have the NFL’s top-ranked rushing offense, but Pittsburgh is No. 8 in stopping the ground game. There’s talk that Tebow could be benched for Brady Quinn if Tebow struggles.
Denver’s point differential of -81 was 25th in the league this season, and it’s the second-worst of any playoff team since the schedule expanded to 16 games in 1978. In Tebow’s 11 starts, the Broncos scored 2.5 fewer points per game than in Kyle Orton’s five starts. But the defense allowed 5.3 fewer points per game in Tebow’s starts.
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ben roethlisberger - brady quinn - denver broncos - isaac redman - maurkice pouncey - pittsburgh steelers - rashard mendenhall - ryan clark - tim tebow
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