Week 3 Prediction: Oakland Raiders @ Denver Broncos

Good Morning Broncos Fans!  It’s Game Day!  Monday Night Football!!

Last week, I predicted a 41-21 victory over the New York Giants.  The Broncos won the game 41-23!  Denver is 2-0 and I am getting closer to nailing a score prediction.  The season is still young, and we have a lot of football ahead of us.  Let’s dig into tonight’s matchup between the visiting Oakland Raiders, and your Denver Broncos!

5 Keys for My Prediction

1. The Broncos will take control of the game early.  Anytime you can make a team one dimensional, it becomes very tough for that team to win.  I see a couple reasons why Oakland will be forced into a one dimensional offensive attack.  First, Oakland is going to want to run.  With McFadden and Pryor, they will hope to establish a running game early.  This will allow them to open up the passing game, and keep the Broncos defense on their heels.  I don’t see this working out as planned.  First, the Denver defense is ranked first in the NFL against the run.  Second, when the offensive attack of Peyton and Company start lighting up the scoreboard, the Raiders will have no choice but to default to the passing game, and that’s when the whole game will change.
2. We can run too.  Moreno is showing more and more promise every week.  Last week, I predicted that the Denver running game would wake up, and it did.  The Broncos offense has the ability to be balanced, or they can pick you apart with the passing game.  There are simply too many weapons on this Manning led offense to keep up with.
3. Turnovers.  Once Denver has a decent lead, the Raiders will start to throw more.  The Denver secondary has shown a lot of maturity, and Denver came into week 3 leading the NFL with 6 interceptions.  Look for them to add to this number against a young quarterback.
4. It’s a Catch 22.  With Clady being out for the year, teams will want to send more blindside pressure towards Manning.  While this may seem like the logical thing to do, Peyton is great under pressure, and knows how to change things at the line of scrimmage to adjust to an ensuing blitz.  The more guys the Raiders send on a blitz is just that much better for the receivers and tight ends.  If you don’t send heavy blitz packages, that will give Manning more time in the pocket, which leads to disasters for opposing defenses.
5. And as always, Manning, Decker, Thomas, Orange Julius and Welker are just too much for the Raiders to handle.  They can’t really put up 40 points in 3 consecutive weeks, can they?!?

Final Score Prediction

Denver Broncos – 38

Oakland Raiders – 17

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