For the Denver Broncos, can momentum carry over from this season?

LAS VEGAS — The Denver Broncos believe this: Getting to 9-8 has value.

“For sure. I mean, I haven’t won in seven years,” left tackle Garett Bolles said.

“So, being a winning season and being 9-8, I think is just super big for us moving forward and where this organization’s going to head — if I’m here or If I’m not here, it is what it is.”

Indeed, there’s the rub of where the Broncos stand. They are at the cusp of their first winning season since 2016, Gary Kubiak’s final campaign on the job as head coach. But significant change is coming, starting with the team likely moving on from Russell Wilson.

Bolles himself is a potential focal point; he has a $20 million cap charge for 2024 — and the Broncos can save $16 million by cutting him. Restructuring the seven-year veteran would appear to make sense after he found his footing following a rough training camp as he returned from a fractured ankle.

But that’s a matter for another day — specifically Monday, when the offseason begins.

For now, it’s about sealing a season that represents progress. And given the Broncos’ 1-5 start, resilience.

“To finish here 9-8, that would be a big thing for us,” Bolles said. “I definitely would walk off that field with a smile on my face, knowing we gave it our all this year. We came up short of playing in the postseason, but finishing 9-8, that speaks volumes of who we are, and that’s a winning season that we haven’t had here since 2016.”

And probably the most satisfying season since Super Bowl 50.

“We have to end the season the right way,” edge rusher Jonathon Cooper, the team’s leading sacker, said. “There’s too many good things, too many well things that happened this whole entire year for us not to go out there, handle our business and make sure that we end the season the right way.

“Regardless of whatever happened and us being eliminated from the playoffs and things like that, we’ve gotta focus on what we can control. And that’s our record.”

As Broncos OLB @JonathonCooper7 says, “We have to end the season the right way. There’s too many good things, too many well things that happened this whole entire year for us not to go out there, handle our business and make sure that we end the season the right way. …” pic.twitter.com/dx4OajgSZV

— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) January 6, 2024

With a win Sunday, the Denver Broncos will have an 8-3 conclusion to Sean Payton’s first season as head coach. So, can that be a springboard?

The results are mixed.

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That is the percentage of teams to make the postseason a year after finishing a non-playoff campaign with an 8-3 record. This covers the time frame from the expansion of the wild-card round in 1978. It encompasses 20 teams, so that is not a particularly massive sample size.

That playoff-qualification percentage drops to 41.5 for non-playoff teams that go 7-4 in the final 11 games of a season.

But it is also worth noting that of the 16 teams in the last decade that finished 7-4 or 8-3 in a campaign when they missed the playoffs, 10 of them — 62.5 percent — carried that momentum forward to make the postseason the following year. If the Steelers qualify for the playoffs, it will be 11 of 16 (68.9 percent).

8-0

The Raiders’ record against the Denver Broncos with Josh Jacobs in the lineup. Since Jacobs became a Raider in 2019, Denver’s only win in the series came with the Raiders’ star running back was sidelined due to injury — on Dec. 29, 2019 at Empower Field at Mile High.

The Broncos won that game on a Shelby Harris deflection of a two-point conversion attempt in the final moments, and they haven’t defeated the Raiders since then. And this is why it’s a big deal that Jacobs will sit out the finale due to a pair of deep bone contusions.

This, of course, means the Broncos are 0-for-Las Vegas, losing all three trips to Allegiant Stadium.

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The Broncos’ losing streak to the Raiders, which is their longest in the series since a 14-game skid that covered a stretch from Dec. 5, 1965 through a 21-13 Raiders won on Dec. 19, 1971. John Ralston arrived as head coach the following year and immediately put a stop to that with a

The Raiders also have a 7-game home winning streak against the Broncos, dating back to their final four seasons at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, which Garett Bolles described Wednesday in colorful terms.

“I think it goes back to when they were in the Coliseum,” Bolles said. “Everything that goes with the Coliseum; it’s a craphole. It is! They’ll say the same thing. That’s why they moved to Vegas.”

Garett Bolles, on what makes the Raiders game special: “It’s the Raiders. Black. Silver. More black and silver. The Black Hole. I think it goes back to when they were in the Coliseum … Everything that goes with the Coliseum; it’s a craphole. It is! They’ll say the same thing …” pic.twitter.com/QcC3fDThzE

— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) January 6, 2024

Having had shoes and pant cuffs ruined by the drainage-challenged bog that the Raiders’ former home became on a rainy day, I can confirm Bolles’ sentiment.