The NFL kicks off it’s 96th season Thursday night with a rematch of last February’s Super Bowl 50 combatants Carolina and Denver at Mile High Stadium in Denver.. The game opened at Denver -1 with total set at 43.5 but
heavy Carolina and under money over the long preseason has made the Panthers -3 (-125) favorites with the high/low dropping to 41.5 at this writing. Weather is expected to be perfect at Mile High Stadium with temps in
the low 70’s, less than 30% humidity and a with a light breeze coming from the Southeast at 6-10 miles-per- hour. The game will be shown live on NBC with kickoff at 8:30 PM EST.
The NFC champion Carolina Panthers come off a franchise best 15-1 regular season led by league MVP Cam Newton. Newton accounted for 45 touchdowns in 2015 with 30 of them coming in the final nine games. Newton also had a big year rushing the football with 636 yards and 10 touchdowns but it is important tonight that no quarterback in NFL history that rushed for 10+ touchdowns, followed that up the next year with more than 6 visits to the end zone. For the year, Newton threw that 3837 yards completing 58% of his passes with a 35-10 TD/Int ratio.
Carolina returns most of the key components from last year’s edition except for shutdown corner Josh Norman who now plies his trade with the Redskins. The defense still features tackling machines Thomas Davis and Luke Keuchly at linebacker. Double-digit sackmasters Charles Johnson and Kewann Short bring the heat from the edge and up the middle of a very tough front seven. Newton will have Jonathon Stewart back to run the football with some talented wide receivers including top draft pick from two years ago Kelvin Benjamin who missed all of last year with a knee injury. Veteran dependable Greg Olsen (77-1104, 7 TDs) is one of the best and arguably least appreciated tight ends in the league.
Last year, the Denver Broncos rode a perfect storm to an NFL championship. Out of the playoffs with less than four weeks left in the regular season, Denver parlayed the best defense in the league with an efficient unspectacular
mistake free offense led by future Hall of Famer Peyton Manning into a ring. In the big game, the Bronco defense defense was able to harass Newton all game, get a defensive score, create four turnovers and overcome less than 250 yards of total Denver offense to win 24-10.
Manning is gone which when you consider his final year stats is addition by subtraction. Trevor Siemian managed to beat out Mark Sanchez for the Bronco starting quarterback job and will become the first quarterback in NFL history
to make his first start with for a returning Super Bowl champ. The second year man from Northwestern is yet to throw a pass in anger and might just be a placeholder until John Elway deems top draft choice Paxton Lynch ready to play.
Siemian will be able to hand off to a solid backfield that returns C.J. Anderson (720, 5 TDs) and newcomer Devontae Booker who was a prolific back at Utah. Demarius Thomas (105-1304, 6 TDs) and Emmanuel Sanders (75-1106, 6 TDs) have to be considered one of the best tandems in the league The stop unit took a couple of hits with defections on the defensive live but the Broncos will still get plenty of pressure from the edges with newly paid Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware. Denver’s secondary is one of the top five in the league and while they don’t produce many picks, are all top defenders.
At this point in time, Carolina is clearly the better team here and that is reflected in the line move. That said, the Panthers were clearly the better team last year heading into the Super Bowl. Carolina basically enters this game with the same components that have won the last three NFC South titles. While revenge is not an overly important handicapping factor in professional sports, you would thing it would play a part here with Super Bowl 50 still fresh in Carolina minds. Denver features a new quarterback. That could prove advantageous in a way as there is new film other than preseason tape for Carolina to gameplan against him. The Broncos are home and still have that big time defense …. so
World Champion handicapper Jeff Allen is a 30+ year industry veteran and is looks to have his best football season ever. Allen continues to run down information of this game and will release his plays on this game no later than 9:00 AM EST on Thursday at his home site of www.vegasscoresandodds.com. Follow Jeff Allen all season long for what figures to be his most profitable football season ever!