{"id":418480,"date":"2026-01-19T02:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T02:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/418480\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T02:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T02:06:09","slug":"2025-nfl-playoffs-odds-betting-denver-broncos-open-as-historic-underdogs-vs-patriots-in-afc-championship-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/418480\/","title":{"rendered":"2025 NFL Playoffs, odds, betting: Denver Broncos open as historic underdogs vs. Patriots in AFC championship game"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been an amazing season for the Denver Broncos, who rode a 14-3 record to the No. 1 seed in the AFC and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. Denver held on for a 33-30 overtime win over the Buffalo Bills<\/a> in an instant classic in Saturday’s divisional round game. Unfortunately, starting quarterback Bo Nix suffered a season-ending ankle injury in the extra frame and will be out for Denver’s next game against the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship.<\/p>\n

That means that backup QB Jarrett Stidham will get his first playoff start.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Drake Maye led the Patriots \u2014 aided by four C.J. Stroud interceptions \u2014 to a 28-16 win over the Texans<\/a> to earn a date in Denver.<\/p>\n

Oddsmakers are making the Broncos historic home underdogs.<\/p>\n

Denver opened as a 4.5-point home underdog at BetMGM<\/a> on Sunday night, which had already been pushed up to -5.5. That would be the biggest home underdog for a No. 1 seed in a conference championship game since at least 1970, per Sports Odds History<\/a>. The total was set at 40.5 points.<\/p>\n

It’s Denver’s first appearance in an AFC title game since 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s been an amazing season for the Denver Broncos, who rode a 14-3 record to the No. 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[65064,2215,1748,2216,49,48,1743,2221,174962,1718,514,82,157912],"class_list":["post-418480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-afc-championship","tag-bo-nix","tag-buffalo-bills","tag-c-j-stroud","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-denver-broncos","tag-drake-maye","tag-jarrett-stidham","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl","tag-sports","tag-the-afc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}