Broncos at 49ers: San Francisco Is 3-0, and Denver's 2-1 Comes With an Asterisk
Denver is 2-1 and has been outscored by ten points. That one figure frames Sunday at Levi's Stadium better than either record does.
The Broncos' month: a 10-31 loss at Kansas City in Week 1, then a 20-13 win over Jacksonville and a 30-26 win over the Rams, both in Denver. Sixty points scored, seventy allowed. In their only road game, they scored ten.
San Francisco's month runs the other way, though not as cleanly as 3-0 sounds. The 49ers have scored 98 and allowed 50, a +48 differential, built on a 27-7 win at the Rams, a 35-13 win over Miami and a 36-30 win over Arizona. Read the points allowed in sequence: 7, 13, 30. The defense has loosened every week, and the Cardinals game was the first one the 49ers couldn't shake.
That's the tension here, and it's real. Denver's offense posted 30 against the Rams, its best afternoon of the season and the reason the Broncos arrive on a two-game win streak. San Francisco's defense gave up 30 the same weekend. If those two lines keep bending the same way, this is a closer game than the number suggests.
I don't think they will. Denver's two wins came at home against teams that don't pressure a quarterback the way the 49ers can, and the Broncos' only trip out of Denver produced ten points against a Kansas City team that had no trouble with them. A 2-1 team with a negative differential is a team that has been feasting on schedule, not a team that has arrived. San Francisco has won three different ways now: a blowout on the road, a comfortable home win, and a shootout it survived. That's a better sign than a pair of close home wins.
Our call, published earlier this week, is unchanged. San Francisco 49ers -3, total 46.5, with the moneyline at San Francisco 49ers -166 / Denver Broncos +140 (odds via ESPN, captured Mon Sep 28). We took the field goal and the over together, because both want the same thing: enough possessions for the 49ers to build a real margin rather than nurse a lead. Our projection is Denver Broncos 22, San Francisco 49ers 25.
The part of that call I'm least comfortable with is the total, not the side. Denver has scored 60 points in three games, and 30 of them came in one afternoon against a Rams defense that hasn't looked right. If that week was a blip, the Broncos' offense goes quiet again on the road and the 49ers cover the field goal without needing the over. If it was a turning point, Denver's 30-point week plus San Francisco's 30-point allowance is how a game gets to the high 40s and the field goal gets dicey.
My read: Denver's record is a home-field artifact, and the 49ers are the first team on their schedule equipped to make the trip out of Denver look like Week 1 did. San Francisco's defense has been getting worse by the week, which is the one thing that could prove me wrong, but the Broncos have to show they can score away from home before I'll price them as a real threat. Give me the field goal, and give me the 49ers to win it by more than the number.
I've been wrong about teams like this before. Denver is 2-1 for a reason. I just don't think the reason travels.
