Is the Denver Broncos 7-2 start to the season manic or just enough?

A frenzied 7-2 start has the Broncos near the top of the AFC at the bye, but five other teams with two or fewer losses want the same prize

BY DENVER SPORTS

Nov 12, 2026, 12:03 PM

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Watch: How can the Broncos get the No. 1 seed again this year? | 10 mins

Two words describe the same Denver Broncos team, and they don’t contradict each other. One captures how the 7-2 start has felt. The other captures what it adds up to.

Asked to sum up the first half in a word, one Will Petersen, in for Phillip Lindsay with Zach Bye, chose “manic” and read out the dictionary definition: “frenzied and uncontrolled activity.”

Petersen’s evidence was a game-by-game list of escapes: Jonah Coleman sliding down the sideline against Jacksonville. A long Bo Nix touchdown run against Arizona. A goal-line stand against Kansas City.

Nine games, Petersen said, and almost no relaxing in any of them.

“I feel like I just ran a marathon and I’m sitting on the couch watching these football games,” he said.

The case for “enough”

Bye picked “enough,” and the numbers back him. Denver has outscored opponents by 12 points all season. Kansas City, at 6-2, is plus-59. Jacksonville, also 6-2, is plus-108.

The Broncos, by this telling, entered the Carolina game with a bottom-10 offense and a bottom-10 defense. They have won 16 straight one-score games, which Bye said has no precedent.

He called it a test of “how sustainable is the unsustainable.”

The two words fit together. Manic is how a thin margin feels from the couch, and enough is what it looks like in the standings.

What 7-2 buys

Both Petersen and Bye see the record as a good place to be. Petersen said he would have sprinted to sign up for 7-2 at the bye back at training camp, partly because the schedule softens. Denver has the Raiders twice, the Dolphins and the Jets in the next five games.

The Steelers on Black Friday is the hard one.

Why the No. 1 seed is the prize

The bigger point is what the record is for. Petersen called the NFL’s reward for the top seed absurd, and said no other sport does it.

“Football, you have to win one fewer game than all the other teams,” he said.

That means two wins, both at home, with no travel until the Super Bowl. Bye agreed completely. If the games are in Denver, he said, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Kansas City or Jacksonville can all lose there. On the road in Buffalo or Kansas City, he doesn’t like their chances.

A crowded field

The catch is that Denver doesn’t own the spot. Six AFC teams have two or fewer losses: Buffalo at 7-1, Denver at 7-2, and Jacksonville, Pittsburgh, Kansas City and Cincinnati at 6-2. The Bengals would be only the sixth seed today.

“It’s a 6-horse race for this coveted 1 seed,” Petersen said.

He expects it to take 14-3 again, as he said it did last year. That is why he rejected the idea that a non-conference game against Carolina didn’t matter.

So the argument comes down to whether “just enough” keeps being enough. Denver’s margin for error is small, and the prize is worth a lot.

Disclosure: This article was transcribed from our original audio content and edited for readability with the assistance of generative AI. The article has been reviewed by our editorial team prior to publication. Please watch or listen to the clip above for the full segment.