The Broncos and Chargers get Week 16 kicked off tonight, and Geoff Ulrich is here with his Thursday Night Football bets and picks:

Week 16 Thursday Night Football Bets and Picks: Will Bo Nix Deliver?

These two teams are coming off dramatically different weeks. The Broncos didn’t play that well to start their game against the Colts, but made the most of an insanely lucky break when opposing RB Jonathan Taylor fumbled the ball into the end zone, on what was a surefire Colts rushing TD.

From there, the Broncos defense took over and Bo Nix made some great throws in the red zone to lead the Broncos to a 31-13 win. 

Nix didn’t have a great day against the Colts, completing just 60% of his passes and throwing 3 INTs, alongside the 3 TDs, but he made big throws when he needed to. With the win, the Broncos pushed to 9-5 and a game ahead of the Chargers who lost in a blowout 40-17 at Tampa Bay. 

The loss by the Chargers continued a dangerous trend for them this season. They’re now just 2-3 against teams with winning records with their only wins coming against Denver in Week 6 (when Bo Nix was still adjusting) and against the Falcons in Week 13, a game they barely won 17-13.

The Chargers once elite defense took a major step back last week, allowing Baker Mayfield to complete 83% of his passes and the Buccaneers to average 5.7 yards per carry. Justin Herbert’s efficiency numbers have also dipped a bit recently and he only averaged 5.9 yards per attempt against Tampa Bay, despite having Ladd McConkey back in the lineup.

Los Angeles has struggled to establish any kind of run game lately and that’s seemingly hurt their offense as a whole. They’ll be hard-pressed to reverse that trend this week against a Broncos defense that ranks fourth in EPA per rush.

So will the Chargers reestablish themselves as the second-best team in the AFC West or does Denver get a little revenge from an early season loss? We’ll answer that and more as we dive into the spread, total and best props to target for betting, below.

Injury Notes for Broncos vs Chargers

Broncos

Questionable

Chargers

Questionable

Best Bets For TNF Spread and Total - Chargers vs Broncos

I wouldn’t put either of these squads near the elite teams in the conference at the moment, rankings-wise, but I still give a decided edge to the Broncos for this game.

The Chargers have been less effective on both sides of the ball of late. Justin Herbert is also banged up and on the injury report while two of their starting DBs (Cam Hart and Elijah Molden) are highly questionable for this game.

I haven’t been in love with how the Broncos have played their last two outings, but their defense stepped up when they needed to last week and Bo Nix is far more advanced than he was in Week 6 when these two teams first met—a game where Denver dominated the second half (but couldn’t complete the comeback).

I’ve already logged a Broncos bet in our Free NFL bet Tracker and still like Denver at -3.0 (-120; ESPNbet). Our game model has this projected at +1.1/-1.1, so it's showing value on Denver at anything +2.0 or bigger.

If the current -3.0 line moves shorter than -120, then I would most likely prefer just playing them on the money line at +120 or better.

The game total is a pass for me, but our model has this projected at 40.5 and is showing value on the under.

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I break down the best props for this week’s matchup below.

Thursday Night Football Player Props - Broncos vs Chargers

Bo Nix Over 20.5 completions (-120; bet365)

Nix has been a pretty accurate QB in his first season in the league. He only completed 60% of his passes last week against the Colts, but for the season he’s above 63% and has had four games where he’s completed 70% of his passes.

Additionally, the Broncos don’t have the greatest run game (20th EPA per rush) or RB room, so they’ll often use the short passing game as an extension of the run game, which allows Nix to complete a lot of short passes. For the season, he’s averaged 21.21 completions per game.

This week, he’ll also be taking on a Chargers team that has allowed a 67% completion rate against and an average of 23.33 completions against over their last three games.

Looking at this matchup, with the Broncos so poor at generating big run gains and the Chargers still with a solid interior defensive line, I don’t see how the Broncos move the ball effectively without passing. Their RBs only generated 43 yards rushing in their Week 6 loss to the Chargers and Nix dropped back 33 times in that game.

We have Nix projected for just over 21 completions this week on Fantasy Life and with this game being in a dome, I don’t see any reason not to side with the over at his current 20.5 total; as long as the line stays at -130 or better.

Courtland Sutton over 62.5 yards (-113; FanDuel)

Sutton is coming off a down game against the Colts, as he went for just 32 yards on three catches in Week 15. He did add in a TD (which saved his fantasy managers from oblivion) but it was the first time in a while he underperformed on his yardage line.

This week sets up as a perfect bounce-back spot.

Sutton’s nine targets led the team by a wide margin last week and he’ll continue to get primary targeting against a Chargers secondary that has struggled against big WR1s this season. Mike Evans torched them for 159 yards and nine receptions last week (11 targets) and Drake London was able to go for 9 catches himself and produce 96 yards— despite having the recently benched Kirk Cousins throwing him the ball.

We have Sutton projected for over 9.0 targets and 70 yards this week in our aggregate projections on Fantasy Life. With the magnitude of this game and both teams vying to book a playoff berth, it’s hard to see the Broncos not relentlessly targeting Sutton against this weak secondary.

I like playing this at 62.5 (-113; FanDuel) but I would also be fine getting it at 63.5 as long as the line was -115 or higher. 

Underdog Pick'em Plays For TNF Week 16

Quentin Johnston has been a solid TD scorer this season but he’s also one of the least efficient WRs in the league. He’s converted just 56% of his targets into catches this year and managed just a 50% conversion rate against Tampa Bay last week, one of the weaker secondaries in the league.

It’s also likely that he’ll see plenty of Patrick Surtain this week, making this a difficult matchup for him and reason enough to be bearish on him going over his 3.5 reception totals (we have him projected at 3.4 with a little value to the lower side as well).

The Nix/Sutton combo play from the Broncos is again attacking this weaker Chargers secondary. Sutton has scored four times in his last five games and leads the Broncos with 19 red zone targets. As mentioned above, the Chargers have struggled against opposing WR1s and now allowed eight TDs to opposing WRs over their last five games.

If we like Nix to be throwing more in this spot and having an efficient day, it’s not outlandish to pair his completions higher with a Sutton TD, which is available at a good price on UD and boosts this 3-way ticket to nearly 9x.

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