Josh Appelbaum examines where smart money is leaning for Browns-Broncos on Monday Night Football.Week 13 of the NFL regular season wraps up tonight with a Monday Night Football showdown between the Cleveland Browns and Denver Broncos. Let’s examine where smart money is leaning using our VSiN NFL Betting Splits, which are updated every 10-minutes and come directly from DraftKings and Circa Sports.
8:15 p.m. ET: Cleveland Browns at Denver Broncos (-6, 42)
The Browns (3-8) just snapped a two-game losing streak with a 24-19 win over the Steelers, winning outright as 3.5-point home dogs. Meanwhile, the Broncos (7-5) have won two straight and just took down the Raiders 29-19, covering as 6-point road favorites.The early lookahead line for this game was Denver -7.5 at home. We quickly saw this line adjusted downward, with the Broncos falling as low as -5.5. Since that time, we’ve seen some Broncos buyback push Denver back up to -6, with a few shops now hanging -6.5 on gameday.
While the line has fluctuated in both directions, one constant has been the fact that the public is rushing to the window to lay the points with Denver at home. The Broncos are currently receiving 70% of spread bets at DraftKings and 72% of spread bets at Circa. As a result, this means the Browns are offering notable contrarian value as they are only taking in roughly 30% of spread bets in a heavily bet primetime game.
Big road dogs getting 6-points or more are 27-17 ATS (61%) with a 17% ROI this season. Primetime dogs getting 6-points or more are 30-17 ATS (64%) with a 22% ROI since 2022. Cleveland has correlative betting value as roughly a touchdown dog in a low total game (42), with the fewer amount of expected points scored making it harder for the bigger favorite to cover. The Browns have buy-low value as a “bad” ATS team (4-7) against a sell-high “good” ATS team (9-3). Cleveland enjoys a rest advantage as well, having last played on Thursday while the Broncos played on Sunday. Those looking to go contrarian and back Cleveland would be wise to jump on the hook while it lasts, as most books are juicing up Browns +6.5 (-115), which means it might fall back down to 6.
In his career, Jameis Winston is 8-20 ATS (29%) as a favorite but 28-24 ATS (54%) as a dog, including 13-5 ATS (72%) as a dog getting 6-points or more.
In terms of the total, we’ve seen it rise from 41 to as high as 42.5, then back down to 42. The over is only receiving 56% of bets but 72% of dollars at DraftKings, a notable “low bets, higher dollars” bet split. Weather shouldn’t be an issue, as the forecast calls for high 30s, clear skies and mild 3-5 MPH winds.
Player Prop to Consider
Devaughn Vele over 37.5 receiving yards (-110): Vele has gone over this number in three straight games. He just caught six passes for 80 yards last week against the Raiders. Vele, a 7th round 6’5” rookie from Utah, has only played 8 games this season but still ranks 4th on the team in targets. He has averaged 6 targets per game over the past three games. With the Browns likely to focus on Denver’s top wideout Courtland Sutton, this could offer favorable matchups for Vele against lesser (and shorter) defensive backs.
