DENVER BRONCOS @ KANSAS CITY CHIEFS 
Vegas Line: Broncos + 3
Rob’s Line: Broncos + 3.5
I have a confession. Before last Sunday, looking ahead to Week 10, there were a couple of games that didn’t hold my attention for longer than a microsecond and this was one of them. Kansas City had knocked off the Chargers on Monday Night Football to blow open the AFC West and Denver had been beaten, and badly, at home to Detroit.
The mania and the circus surrounding Tim Tebow…hmmm, hang on, bear with me, I may be on to something here. To borrow the current trend of conjoining two words, mania and circus becomes Mancircus and if ever a word could befit Tebow this season, I think I may just have discovered it.
The Mancircus surrounding Tebow was about to be extinguished and what awaited the Broncos last week was a difficult trip to Oakland while KC could surely not succumb to the Dolphins. All of this pointed to the Chiefs moving further clear of Denver before this clash at Arrowhead that seemed to have only one outcome. Well, a couple of very curious things then happened. Three things in fact.
The aforementioned Dolphins did what they’d been meaning to do for a couple of weeks and that was win. Yes, one win, but they won big, humiliating the Chiefs 31-3 at home. The Broncos went to Oakland and ran all over the Raiders, literally, rushing for 299 yards. Willis McGahee had 163 yards on 20 carries (2 TDs) while Tebow himself ran for more yards (118) than the Raiders did as a team (100). And it’s the latter that is my third curio.
This week, the Broncos have admiited that they’re tailoring their offense around Tebow’s strengths…namely, his ability to run with the ball. It worked a treat last week, but the NFL is crammed full of defensive gurus who will simply be having sleepless nights in excitement at the propspect of devising gameplans aimed at stopping Tebow in his tracks. I admire Denver’s coaching staff for this as it accentuates the positive, but, as I read elsewhere this week, if Tebow gets injured, it’ll need a quick reverting to the old playbook and that may prove disruptive. This is all conjecture, of course, so if you have the Broncos in your heart, enjoy the ride.
If I may go back to McGahee for a second, here’s a great stat. In the previous two seasons he had just two 100 yard rushing games; this season he’s had four already and at a very healthy 5.1 yards per carry. Denver finds itself tantalisingly close to a share of the division lead and a win this Sunday will make KC’s recent revival look very hollow.
How the Chiefs managed to lose so badly last week is, in my opinion, down to those wonderful intangibles. The MNF victory over the Chargers was an emotional one on many levels and to then face a winless Miami team at home after a short week resulted in a shocking drop off in motivation. That won’t be allowed to happen this Sunday, but if the Chiefs do look ahead to the coming weeks, they face a brutal schedule and I see them having no chance of making the playoffs. That shouldn’t really have any bearing on this game (it shouldn’t, but, buyer beware those intangibles), but I do like the look of Denver with the points on offer.
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