NFL Week 5 Betting – Den. to Continue Dominance of Oak.

Denver Broncos (-4.5, 43.5 o/u) at Oakland Raiders

Even with Peyton Manning struggling, the Denver Broncos (4-0, 2-0 Away) are still unbeaten after four weeks, largely on the strength of their defense. Denver will try to make it five in a row this weekend when they battle the division rival Oakland Raiders (2-2, 1-1 Home) at O.co Coliseum (4:25 PM Eastern).

In an odd turn of events, Denver is unbeaten despite Peyton Manning, not because of him. Though he’s looked a little better of late, Manning has been unable to put up points with any consistency this year, and has already thrown five interceptions (including two last week). While arm strength is clearly an issue for the aging pivot, Manning has also been under fire (taking ten sacks already on the year) thanks to a suspect offensive line.

The defense, on the other hand, has been lights out, ranking first in the league in yards allowed (275.5 per game) and sacks (18).

“That’s just how we play,” Broncos outside linebacker Von Miller said. “It’s just how football is. You stop thinking about the days when we would put up 40 and 50 [points] on teams.”

The Oakland Raiders, very recently the laughing stock of the league, had a great chance to get to 3-1 last week facing the (previously) winless Bears. Up 20-19 late, they let Jay Cutler and company march down the field for the winning field goal, ultimately falling 22-20 and sliding back to .500 on the year.

Second-year QB Derek Carr has shown improvements on his encouraging rookie season, though, passing for 922 yards, seven touchdowns, and two interceptions so far this season. The addition of stud wideout Amari Cooper has really helped an Oakland offense that lacked weapons last year.

Unfortunately for Carr, he’s likely to be under a lot of pressure this week from Denver’s potent pass rush. If he wants to break the team’s seven-game losing streak to Denver, he’ll have to get the ball out extremely quickly.

The biggest trend to consider for this week is, indeed, that seven-game win streak for the Broncos. Significantly, it coincides with Manning’s entire tenure in the AFC West (i.e. he’s never lost to Oakland while with the Broncos, winning by an average of 21.5 per game). Though he’s certainly slowing down, look for Manning to keep up his dominance of this Oakland team, which still struggles to keep opponents off the board.

Pick: Broncos -4.5.

(Photo credit: Craig Hawkins (flickr) “In the huddle, Broncos vs. Steelers 2012″ [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/legalcode].)