{"id":3739,"date":"2026-01-19T23:27:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T15:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/19\/the-broncos-afc-title-game-chances-are-falling-following-bo-nixs-injury\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T23:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T15:34:09","slug":"the-broncos-afc-title-game-chances-are-falling-following-bo-nixs-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/19\/the-broncos-afc-title-game-chances-are-falling-following-bo-nixs-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"The Broncos&#8217; AFC title game chances are falling following Bo Nix&#8217;s injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The NFL&#8217;s final four is set and the betting lines aren&#8217;t what many would have expected before the season &#8212; or even before last weekend.<\/p>\n<p>The New England Patriots opened as 4.5-point road favorites over the Denver Broncos for the AFC championship, while the Seattle Seahawks opened as 1.5-point home favorites over the Los Angeles Rams for the NFC championship, according to DraftKings lines. After early betting, New England jumped to -5.5 and Seattle to 2.5.<\/p>\n<p>Going forward, the Broncos were 1.5-point favorites over the Patriots, but saw their odds drop quickly following news that quarterback Bo Nix would miss the rest of the postseason with a broken right ankle. Bookies polled say Nix is \u200b\u200bworth anywhere between five and seven points in the spread.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline editorial float-r\" data-behavior=\"article_related\">\n<h2 class=\"editorial-title\">Editor&#8217;s Choice<\/h2>\n<p>2 Related<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re looking forward to seeing how these two defensive teams match up in the AFC Championship and we&#8217;re looking forward to seeing how much of an impact Bo Nix has had on this Broncos team throughout the year,&#8221; Caesars Sportsbooks head of football Joey Feazel told ESPN. &#8220;We are also eager to see where the sharpest players will end up in this game.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A sharp early action could have contributed to making the Pats even bigger favorites. John Murray, vice president of Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas, said he was &#8220;surprised to see how big a New England favorite has been pushed.&#8221; [on Sunday].&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If the 5.5 line holds, New England will be the largest road favorite in a conference championship game since the 1970 AFL\/NFL merger, according to ESPN Research.<\/p>\n<p>The issues of Denver&#8217;s future were also greatly affected by Nix&#8217;s injury. Going into Saturday, the Broncos were +700 in the Super Bowl, according to DraftKings, and just after their win over the Buffalo Bills, they were +370. They rose to +650 after the Nix news, then to +950 by the end of Saturday, before settling at +1100. It would be the longest odds to win a Super Bowl entering a conference championship since the New York Giants (+1500) in January 2008; The Giants famously won all that year.<\/p>\n<p>The Seahawks lead the way on the Super Bowl board heading into the conference championship games, with +145 odds, followed by the Rams at +225 and the Patriots at +255.<\/p>\n<p>All of these teams started the season as relative long shots: Denver and Los Angeles were +2200 each, while New England and Seattle were +6000 each. Either of the former two winning teams would represent the longest preseason odds since the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles (+4000), and either of the latter two would mark the longest since the 2001 Patriots (+6000).<\/p>\n<p>With most of the public&#8217;s Super Bowl favorites eliminated, there&#8217;s little left for sportsbooks to sweat, but at least a few credits are still on the board: BetMGM said a Seahawks Super Bowl win would be its worst result, while DraftKings pegged a Patriots win as its worst.<\/p>\n<p><em>ESPN&#8217;s David Purdum contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The NFL&#8217;s final four is set and the betting lines aren&#8217;t what many would have expected before the season &#8212; or even before last weekend. The New England Patriots opened as 4.5-point road favorites over the Denver Broncos for the AFC championship, while the Seattle Seahawks opened as 1.5-point home favorites over the Los Angeles &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3739"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3741,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739\/revisions\/3741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}