With the 2015-16 NFL Playoffs underway and coming off the Wild Card playoffs it’s time to take a look at the AFC Championship and the possible outcomes with the Division Rounds taking place this Saturday the 16th and Sunday the 17th of January 2016!
While the Denver Broncos and the Patriots had 1st round byes they both will see action this coming weekend, and even as they did not play, the outcome of the Wild Card games had a impact for these 2 teams to win their conference titles.
The 4 teams remaining in the AFC Playoffs in this Divisional Round are the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Denver Broncos, the Kansas City Chiefs and the New England Patriots, so now let’s take a look at who may claim the AFC Conference Title.
Presently the Patriots are still at the top at +170 even as they ended their regular season struggling losing to the Dolphins of Miami and the Jets of New York. Yes and here’s a couple of reason they are expected to be the AFC Champions again. 1st their injured players for the most part have recuperated and should return for the balance of the playoffs. In Week 17 they returned D. Amendola, P. Chung and D. McCourty and for this game they expect the return from injury J. Edelman, S. Vollmer and D. Hightower.
And a 2nd reason is that they are believed to have the top QB in that conference T. Brady, and are expected to be victorious overtaking the Chiefs and their QB A. Smith whose present odds are at +275 to win the AFC Title. Then the Patriots would face the Broncos with QB Manning with his present limitations or the Steelers with the injured QB B. Roethlisberger in the Division Title Round.
For those that Bet on NFL football at a sportsbook, and the fans of the Broncos, you surely realize that your team in the past few weeks has been getting some favorable breaks. The 1st thing is that they grabbed the AFC No. 1 seed which gave them a bye in the 1st round, and extra time for QB Manning to get a rest, plus they racked up home field advantage for the 1st 2 AFC playoff games.
With all those favorable breaks, now they play the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team with a lot of injury concerns including QB Roethlisberger, WR A. Brown and RB D. Williams. However, on the defensive side they have played well and are healthy.
Presently the Denver Broncos are at +210 to win Super Bowl 50 and with a couple more breaks, as they have witnessed lately that could be a good bet.
On the other hand the Steelers as we previously mentioned on offense have some major issues as all 3 of their offensive weapons are facing injuries, and if you include L. Bell who is out for the season with an injury, that makes 4 weapons, and that is not favorable since they will be facing the Broncos defense that is top in the league.
It was almost impossible for the Steelers to overcome and win against the Bengals, and now they need another surprising event to win this game at Mile High against the Broncos, and that becomes really difficult if QB Roethlisberger and WR Brown are unable to play in this Divisional Round game. Presently the Steelers are at +50 to win Super Bowl 50, but it’s believed that for the Steelers to win with the injured QB they will need a golden horseshoe to win and move on to the AFC Title game.