The Denver Broncos will continue their tour against the dregs of the NFC on Saturday night when they face the San Francisco 49ers. Denver rallied in the fourth quarter to beat Chicago last week and the reserves have to be feeling good about how they performed in the win. San Francisco’s reserves are elated to after scoring 18 points in the fourth quarter in a comeback win against Kansas City last week. This will be the first time these teams have met since a regular season clash back in 2014.
This matchup in Week 2 of the preseason will take place on Saturday, August 19, 2017, at 10 p.m. ET at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
Week 2 NFL Preseason Opening Odds at BookMaker.eu
Denver Broncos +2.5
San Francisco 49ers -2.5
Over/Under 40
Odds Analysis
Denver didn’t know much offensively until the fourth quarter in its win over San Francisco last week. The offense scored three points until there were 10 minutes left in the game and Kyle Sloter led the team to two scores. Although the over cashed, keep this in mind as the starters play more and more the next few weeks.
The 49ers struggled to move the ball under Brian Hoyer against Kansas City last week. San Francisco had -2 total yards on the two drives that Hoyer commanded, but the team scored a field goal after Tyler Bray threw an interception. Matt Barkley and CJ Beathard performed much better when given the chance and helped push this game over the total.
Player to Watch
CJ Beathard may have been the most impressive rookie quarterback through the first full week of the preseason. Beathard was in the game for 41 snaps and played awfully good despite a few early setbacks.
In the game, Beathard completed 63.6 percent of his passes for 101 yards and two touchdowns. He had a connection with Kendrick Bourne with most of those passes going to the undrafted free agent out of Eastern Washington.
San Francisco drafted Beathard to be the quarterback of the future. Neither Barkley nor Hoyer are seen as a long-term solution and Beathard’s performance in this game inspires confidence that the team made the right decision to trade up in order to land him in the third round. He is still third on the depth chart, but could become the primary backup if he has another solid performance against the Broncos.
Matchup to Watch
The debate on whether or not to start Trevor Siemian or Paxton Lynch at quarterback rages on for the Denver Broncos. Siemian came into training camp as the favorite to win the starting job and seems to have even more of an upper hand. He has been the more consistent option during training camp and performed better against the Bears. Siemian led the team down the field for a field goal on the opening possession, while Lynch went three-and-out in his first two times on the field and didn’t lead the team to any points in almost two full quarters of action.
Lynch is more physically gifted than Siemian but struggles to put it all together. He has been inconsistent in the lead-up to the regular season, and that isn’t going to mesh very well with a team that lives off of its defense like Denver does. Expect Siemian to see more playing time this week.
Free ATS Pick
There might be some bad blood once these teams see the bright lights in Santa Clara. They are set to scrimmage on Wednesday and Thursday of this week and these scrimmages have a habit of boiling over.
Neither first- or second-team offense was particularly great last week, so look for those units to get more time on the field this week. That will lead to more points on the board and this game going over the total.
Week 2 NFL Preseason Odds: Broncos 24, 49ers 20
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