And now a break from our regularly scheduled rewatching of mid-1980s Broncos games to check in on the current edition of the team.
Tomorrow they host the 15-1 Kansas City Chiefs in the season finale. If the Broncos win, they are in as the #7 seed in the AFC playoffs and head to Buffalo next weekend for their first playoff game since Super Bowl 50. Tall order? Not especially. The Chiefs are resting most of their top guys, meaning that the Broncos will likely claim victory over KC’s junior varsity.
I would have preferred it not be this way. The Broncos clinched their first winning season since 2016 on December 15 with a comeback win over the Colts. They were 9-5 and their win streak was at four games. All they needed was one more win to clinch a playoff spot, and at that point, rising as high as the #5 seed was not out of the question. Instead, they blew a halftime lead to the Chargers on the Thursday before Christmas and then lost in overtime last week to the Bengals. This kept playoff hopes alive for the Bengals as well as the Dolphins, who will claim the #7 seed with a victory over the hopeless Jets should the Broncos falter.
It’s hard to say this isn’t backing into the playoffs. A win over the Chiefs will count in the standings regardless of who plays or doesn’t, but it does feel a little cheap. Also, five years ago the Broncos would already have been out of luck at this point but a 17-game season and a 14-team playoff have made this possible.
The other issue is the fact that the 2024 Broncos are a bit of a paper tiger. Their record is a sterling 7-0 against teams with losing records, but only 1-6 against teams with winning records. They’ve split their games against two 8-8 teams, the Bengals and the Falcons. The best team they’ve beaten all year is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who currently have the same record as the Broncos.
However it happens, it will be good to break this ugly streak of eight seasons missing the playoffs and talking about something besides what new coach they should hire. And it’s nice to see that Bo Nix has turned out to be reasonably competent and we’re not trying to figure out how to run him out of town. We have something to build on, which is less depressing than rolling out different combinations every year and hoping it works out. They still lack serious offensive threats - i.e. Pro Bowl level talent at running back, tight end, and receiver, and one has to wonder how good their defense actually is after some of these late-season showings.
This season has been encouraging and it’s been fun to watch games that actually seem to matter, although this team is a long ways from competing for AFC supremacy with the Ravens, Chiefs, and Bills.
