Jacksonville Jags favored by 17.5 to beat Alabama

Oddsmaker guesses what the point spread would be if Denver Broncos played University of Alabama.


The predicted line for the Week 6 game between the 4-0 Denver Broncos and the 0-4 Jacksonville Jaguars is already creating some buzz, with the estimated line favoring the Broncos by about four touchdowns. That 28-point spread (or 27-point line, depending who you listen to) looks more like a college football spread between a top 25 team in its annual cupcake game than anything the NFL has ever seen.

The surprising thing is that the point spread for a hypothetical game between the No. 1 college football team and the Broncos looks a bit like the line between the Jaguars and the Broncos.

If the Broncos played the Alabama Crimson Tide, the consensus top team in every poll and the two-time defending national champions, the spread would be set at minus-40.5 or higher, according to one oddsmaker.

“If Denver is about 27-point favorites over Jacksonville in Week 6 at Denver, we would have to set the Broncos as at least 40.5 point favorites over the Crimson Tide,” Kevin Bradley, Sports Book Manager of Bovada.lv told Yahoo Sports. “Potentially even higher, as we would assume Denver would score almost every drive while Alabama would be lucky to score 10 points."

That potential 40.5-point spread for the Broncos is a large number, but a hypothetical line between the Jaguars, the NFL's worst team, and college football's No. 1 team is a lot smaller.

"It is not easy to set accurate hypothetical lines on an NFL team vs. an NCAA team for a number of reasons. The two main ones being that this has never happened before and no actual money comes in on it,” Bradley said. “We often will use historical data and how our bettors bet the lines we open and adjust odds from there on any given game. Having said that, even though the Jags are awful and 0-4, they would still be big 17.5-point favorites over Alabama.”