The Mile High Curse
The New England Patriots have won six Super Bowls. They’ve appeared in eleven conference championship games under Robert Kraft’s ownership. The franchise boasts more postseason wins (35) than all but two ownership groups in NFL history. And yet there’s one thing they’ve never accomplished: winning a playoff game in Denver.
The Patriots are 0-4 all-time in postseason games played at Mile High. Three of those losses came with Tom Brady under center. Now, with Drake Maye leading a resurgent franchise back to the AFC Championship for the first time since 2018, New England finds itself as a road favorite against a Denver team starting a backup quarterback. The betting public has taken the bait. Sharp money is moving the other direction.
Four Trips, Four Losses
The Patriots’ Denver playoff history reads like a chronicle of heartbreak. In January 1987, John Elway’s Broncos ended New England’s Super Bowl defense with a 22-17 divisional round victory. Nearly two decades later, Jake Plummer and the Broncos knocked out Brady’s Patriots 27-13 in the 2006 divisional round.
Then came the Peyton Manning chapter. In the 2014 AFC Championship, Manning threw for 400 yards in a 26-16 Denver victory. Two years later, in what became the final Brady-Manning playoff meeting, the Broncos held on 20-18 despite a furious fourth-quarter comeback. Brady found Rob Gronkowski for a touchdown with 12 seconds remaining, but the two-point conversion failed.
The greatest quarterback in NFL history went 0-3 in playoff games at Mile High. Now the Patriots are expected to break that curse with a second-year signal-caller making his first postseason road start.
Why the Public Loves New England
The reasons to back the Patriots are obvious. They went 8-0 on the road during the regular season. Maye has emerged as an MVP candidate. Bo Nix is out with a broken ankle, leaving Denver to start Jarrett Stidham, who hasn’t thrown a regular-season pass since January 2024.
The narrative writes itself: backup quarterback against championship-caliber team. The public has responded accordingly. At DraftKings, 75% of spread bets have landed on New England. That’s exactly the kind of lopsided action that typically moves lines in favor of the popular side.
Except the line has moved the opposite direction.
Sharp Money Speaks
New England opened as a 5.5-point favorite after Nix’s injury was confirmed. Despite three-quarters of bets backing the Patriots, that spread has dropped to 4.5 points at most sportsbooks. When public money floods one side but the line moves toward the other, it typically signals sharp action on the less popular team.
Joey Feazel, head of NFL trading at Caesars Sportsbook, told Yahoo Sports the market valued Nix’s absence at roughly 4.5 to 5.5 points. The current line suggests the market may have overcorrected. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see sharp money on Broncos as we get closer to game time,” Feazel said.
The lookahead line before Nix’s injury had Denver as a 1.5-point home favorite. That means the market has essentially swung seven points on a single injury. Professional bettors are questioning whether that’s justified.
What Denver Still Has
The Broncos’ defense finished second in the NFL in yards allowed and led the league with 68 sacks, 11 more than any other team. That unit forced five turnovers against Josh Allen in the divisional round, including four from the Bills quarterback alone.
Stidham knows the system. He’s spent three years learning Sean Payton’s offense and practiced against the Patriots’ defense during his time in New England. The 29-year-old is 1-3 as a career starter with eight touchdowns and eight interceptions, but he threw for 365 yards against a 49ers team that reached the NFC Championship in his first NFL start.
Denver is also 6-1 at home in AFC Championship games. The Broncos went 8-1 at home during the regular season. The altitude, the crowd, and the franchise’s championship pedigree all remain intact regardless of who’s taking snaps.
The Contrarian Case
None of this guarantees a Denver victory. Stidham is a significant downgrade from Nix, and Maye has been one of the best quarterbacks in football this season. The Patriots defense has allowed fewer than 20 points in four consecutive games.
But contrarian betting rarely requires certainty. It requires finding situations where the market may have overreacted to public perception. A 4.5-point spread on a road team that has never won a playoff game in that building, facing a defense that led the NFL in sacks and forced five turnovers last week, fits that description.
The Patriots haven’t won at Mile High in January since the merger. Sharp bettors are banking on history repeating itself one more time.