Saturday is the first day of the season with meaningful football, but if you’re a degenerate like me, you’re also getting action on some meaningless football games. Every week, I’ll post my top picks by Tuesday and provide an update before each game — you can check out all of my NFL preseason Week 3 picks here. Let’s dig into today’s Rams-Broncos betting odds as we make our predictions and pick the best NFL preseason bet!
Looking for more 2023 NFL predictions? OddsShopper’s experts are here to break down the upcoming NFL season — make sure to check out the rest of our NFL articles, including our AFC West and NFC West previews. Come back during the NFL season for our market-based betting model’s picks and best bets — or try it out for Week 1 now!
Rams-Broncos Pick & Preseason Betting Prediction
Rams-Broncos Betting Odds
Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook
Rams: +190 | Broncos: -240
Rams +5.5: -105 | Broncos -5.5: -115
Over 36.5: -110 | Under 36.5: -110
Rams-Broncos Pick & Prediction
The Los Angeles Rams and Denver Broncos will square off late on Saturday night. While you might be busy watching college football, because, you know, it actually means something — you can check out our Week 0 picks here, by the way — there’s still preseason action to bet on. Saturday night’s Broncos-Rams game probably won’t be all that exciting, but it’s an interesting spot nonetheless. Both teams have performed acceptably on offense but haven’t done a thing on defense.
The total for Saturday night’s Rams-Broncos game hasn’t budged since the early week column went up on Tuesday — at least on FanDuel. Sharper books are listing the total at 37 or 37.5, including Pinnacle, but the 36.5 is still available at the standard juice on FanDuel. Obviously, that means we’re getting action on the over. Pregame reports that 57% of the cash has come in on the over but on only 40% of the tickets, so we’re on the sharp side of this one. Now let’s break down why that’s the sharp side.
Let’s look at Denver’s offense first. Head coach Sean Payton has given his starters some run, usually opening each game with Russell Wilson at the helm before pivoting to the reserves, which include Jarrett Stidham and Ben DiNucci. Wilson has underperformed in Sean Payton’s offense and has completed only 52.6% of his passes for 5.5 NY/A. However, the Broncos have still averaged an impressive 5.4 yards per play, largely due to an effective ground game and better-than-Wilson play from Stidham and DiNucci. Meanwhile, the defense has coughed up 5.3 yards per play.
Los Angeles’ offense hasn’t fared quite as well, and their defense looks worse, too. The Rams have scored exactly 17 points in each of their preseason games while averaging 4.3 yards per play. Rookie Stetson Bennett, who has played the most reps of any L.A. quarterback, has completed 60.3% of his passes for 5.3 NY/A, which isn’t great. The rushing attack has provided very little support. The defense has coughed up an embarrassing 5.9 yards per play and 5.6 yards per rush attempt as well.
Just give me the over in this spot. The Rams desperately need to show some signs of life on offense, while the Broncos still need to figure out what’s wrong with their first-team unit, and Sean Payton has said he might play them for a drive. Both teams will get a chance to show out against defenses that have looked like sieves in the preseason. While it feels square to trust two as-of-yet-unproven offenses, we’re getting this total at a discount with it set to only 36.5, so let’s take advantage and not look back.
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Broncos-Rams NFL Preseason Pick: Over 36.5 -110 at FanDuel
