Broncos looking to avoid first season with 13 losses in franchise history
Jan 3, 2023, 3:49 PM | Updated: 4:16 pm
If the Broncos need a reason for extra motivation on Sunday, maybe this is it.
The team has never lost 13 games in franchise history. Not once. Not in 10 AFL seasons in the 1960s and not in 52 NFL seasons since. In fact, Denver’s lost 12 games just one other time, back in 2010. That disastrous year resulted in drafting Super Bowl 50 MVP Von Miller a few months later, so it all worked out.
Yes, the schedule has expanded from 14 games to 16 games to now 17 games over the years, but you still have to be really bad to lose this many games. At 4-12, the Broncos are tied for the third-worst record in the NFL. Only Chicago (3-13) and Houston (2-13-1) have posted more dismal marks.
And of course, there will be no Von Miller in Denver’s future with a top-5 draft selection. That first-round pick is headed to Seattle in the Russell Wilson trade. The Broncos will pick in the first-round in 2023, but they’ll receive the San Francisco 49ers pick thanks to the Bradley Chubb deal. That will likely be in the high 20s or low 30s, depending on how far the Niners go in the playoffs.
But back to this season. To put into perspective what the standard used to be around here, former owner Pat Bowlen appeared in more Super Bowls (seven) than the Broncos had losing seasons (six) through the 2017 league year. “Mr. B” bought the Broncos in 1984.
Bowlen stepped away due to health concerns in July of 2014 and later passed away in June of 2019. The team was sold to the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group this past August. A trust ran the Broncos after Bowlen’s departure, and his presence was severely missed during more losings from 2018 until now.
Looking at Denver’s year-by-year record is fascinating. It seems like they won double-digit games nearly every year. They haven’t sniffed that since 2016, the year after the Super Bowl 50 championship.
A lot of this obviously falls on general manager George Paton and quarterback Russell Wilson. Former head coach Nathaniel Hackett is to blame as well, just like Vic Fangio and Vance Joseph were in years past. But regardless of whose “fault” this is, it needs to get fixed, and it needs to get fixed fast.
A win on Sunday would help avoid the first 13-loss season in franchise history, but that’s not something to be proud of. It would simply mean this current bunch avoided going down as the worst Broncos team of all-time.
***
