The woeful Jacksonville Jaguars are 28-point underdogs against the Denver Broncos Sunday. Although there are no official records for point spreads, the consensus is that the -28 is tied for the largest spread in NFL gambling history.
Anyone who likes to bet on football will tell you that sports books all set their lines independently. However, all casinos seem to eventually find a similar line for each and every game. Think of it like crowd-sourcing; they all come to a similar level. As great as the Broncos are, four touchdowns seems very very high.
I think 28 points is very high even for a college football game, let alone an NFL contest. Even though the talent and performance disparity between the Broncos and Jaguars is about as extreme as I can ever remember.
Of course, I still think Peyton Manning and the Broncos will absolutely crush the Jags into a million little pieces this weekend.
So here you go. The five highest spreads in NFL history. (Courtesy of Gamedayer- check out that sports blog, they do good work) Congrats to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who made the list twice!
2013: Jacksonville Jaguars (+28) at Denver Broncos
1976: Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+28) at Baltimore Colts
1976: Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+27) at Pittsburgh Steelers
2007: Philadelphia Eagles (+24.5) at New England Patriots
1993: Cincinnati Bengals (+24) at San Francisco 49ers
Maybe the Broncos being four touchdown favorites isn’t that unrealistic after all. The Broncos are leading the NFL at 46.2 points per game. Jacksonville is penultimate at 11.6 points per game. Only Tampa Bay is worse. JAX averages just 250 yards per game and only 58 via the rushing attack. Juxtapose that against Manning and the Broncos, who put 373 through the air alone, and close to 500 altogether on average each contest.
Will be a blowout indeed!
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An analyst for 95.7 The Fan and 1620 The Zone, he also writes for Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks), Facebook, and RSS