Yes, the Broncos are Super Bowl contenders

DENVER — Today, the AFC West.

Tomorrow, Super Bowl LX?

Why not?

These Broncos don’t have to dream it. The goal that they established when they arrived in training camp, the one that Sean Payton said the 66th edition of Denver’s entry in professional football could have as a realistic outcome, is within their grasp.

Payton wrote some hefty checks back then when he spoke to national media who rolled through practices. These Broncos — these resourceful, tenacious, timely, opportunistic, persistent, resilient Broncos — continue to confound skeptics and appear to be laughing all the way to the bank as they prove capable of cashing them.

And with every week, their wins keep getting bigger.

In Week 5 at Philadelphia, they proved they could finally win a close game against a quality team — a feat that eluded them throughout the 2024 season and into 2025.

Two weeks later against the New York Giants, they stormed back from three scores down in the final six minutes, pulling off a late-game comeback unlike any other seen in NFL annals.

And now …

“Yeah, this is a big one,” tight end Adam Trautman said. “I’m not going to sit here and be like, ‘Yeah, it’s just another win or whatever.’ No, it’s a big deal. This is the, what, seven AFC championships in a row [that the Chiefs have been in]? Three Super Bowls in the last seven, won the AFC West, I don’t know, nine years or something like that, ever since the Broncos won the Super Bowl.

“So, yeah, it’s a big deal. And it’s also obviously a conference booster when you can take a team out, like this. They’re 5-4 [coming in], but they’re still one of the best teams in the league.”

By some analytic measures, these Chiefs are better than last year’s edition; ESPN’s FPI metric has them ranked higher than in 2024. Their total EPA/play on offense and defense ranks No. 3.

The Broncos have wins over both of last year’s Super Bowl participants. One of them tops the FPI. The other, the defending-champion Eagles, have the NFC’s No. 1 seed as of Sunday night.

What they are now isn’t what they were in September, when they absorbed two-straight walk-off losses to the Indianapolis Colts and Los Angeles Chargers, dropping their record in one-score games since the start of the 2024 season to 2-8.

Since then, the Broncos have won six one-score games in a row. They figured out how to close.

And because of that, what they are now is clear: Super Bowl contenders.

THE BRONCOS DEFENSE HAS THE 2015 AURA

There was a sign of this in Week 1.

With the Broncos leading 13-12 in the fourth quarter, Marvin Mims Jr. muffed a Johnny Hekker punt, allowing the Tennessee Titans to recover the football at Denver’s 24-yard line — well within field-goal range. Even if the Titans went backward 10 yards, they were still likely to take the lead.

At that point, the hurricane-strength Broncos pass rush said, “Not on our watch.”

After Tony Pollard rushed for two yards, Denver’s furious front seven sent Tennessee quarterback Cam Ward reeling in reverse — 27 yards on a pair of sacks. The near-certai3n three points became a punt into the end zone for a touchback.

It hearkened back to a moment a decade earlier, immediately after Cleveland’s Barkevious Mingo picked off Peyton Manning four plays into overtime, setting the Browns up at the Denver 39-yard line. The Browns didn’t even need to move the chains to set their kicker at the time, Travis Coons, up for a potential game-deciding shot that could have dealt the Broncos their first defeat of the season.

Shaquil Barrett, Malik Jackson and Co. would have none of that. Two sacks and a three-yard loss on a Robert Turbin sweep left the Browns skidding 11 yards in reverse and out of Denver territory altogether.

What the 2015 and 2025 Broncos defenses share is a no-excuses mentality. Yeah, the offense and special teams might leave them in a bind because of a miscue or general short-circuiting, the latter of which was on full display over a 10-quarter stretch through halftime Sunday in which the offense mustered just 34 points — which prorates to a meager 13.6 points per 60 minutes. On two of the Broncos’ scoring drives in that span, the offense didn’t even produce a first down.

“Just being able to find ways to win, each and every way, whether it’s a blowout, close game, come from behind, it don’t matter,” edge rusher Nik Bonitto said. “I mean, we got a resilient team, so just finding ways to win, it’s real special for us.”

In the following two weeks after that initial stand against Tennessee, that sheen faded. Jonathan Taylor trampled them; Justin Herbert carved them to pieces.

Since then, the defense has found its form, and Sunday, it did what few teams do:

It made Patrick Mahomes uncomfortable, hitting him eight times. What’s more, it made him frustrated.

“Yeah, I mean, 100 percent,” Bonitto said. “I mean, with the way we rush, we’re going to make them a little bit uncomfortable in the pocket and obviously with the back end that we have, we’re going to make him hold it. So, I can see how that can be for him, as far as just being a little frustrated as the game goes on.”

It’s one thing to do that to a rookie quarterback like Ward, making his first start, or to an understudy like Jake Browning, who was so far out of his depth for the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 4 that they soon traded for Joe Flacco in an attempt to save their season.

But to tear apart Mahomes, just as they discombobulated Dak Prescott and a roaring Dallas attack three weeks earlier? All doubts that existed about the defense following that shaky fortnight at Indianapolis and Los Angeles have long since ebbed.

This unit is earning comparisons with its ring-brandishing predecessors of a decade ago. And its defensive play-caller, Vance Joseph, is making the same kind of bold, prescient decisions his mentor Wade Phillips did throughout his career as one of the NFL’s elite defensive masterminds.

TRUSTING THE PLAYERS TO MAKE THE BOLD CALL

Indeed, when Joseph sent Ja’Quan McMillian on a third-down blitz with 3:53 remaining, it was the sort of call that Mahomes typically exploits, given his career-long success against the blitz.

Not this time. McMillian timed his rush perfectly after observing a tendency from Mahomes.

“I noticed early in the game when he was snapping the ball, his hands were coming up and the ball was coming out. So, I just timed it so when his hands start coming up, I start sneaking toward the edge and made a play,” McMillian said. “They didn’t slide a protection. I just went in.”

Mahomes didn’t know what hit him.

And then, on the ensuing drive, with the offense just past midfield and observers bracing for a long Wil Lutz field-goal attempt to break the deadlock, Sean Payton sent Troy Franklin deep down the left sideline.

“It was a great call, a ballsy call to drop back there and get a 30-yard chunk play to put us right in [for] a chip-shot field goal,” right tackle Mike McGlinchey said.

All that was required from there was proper execution — and proper blocking — on Lutz’s game-winning attempt.

The process worked, Lutz had his third walk-off field goal in the last five weeks, and the Broncos ended Sunday with the No. 1 seed in the AFC if the playoffs started now.

None of this means the Broncos will get there. In a one-and-done postseason, outlier results can — and will — happen. Your star pass rusher and leading receiver wake up with food poisoning from the chicken cacciatore they had the night before the game, and you can say “Cancun” quicker than the time it takes to find the Pepto-Bismol.

But the stakes are raised. And if the Broncos’ season doesn’t end at Levi’s Stadium, disappointment will be justified, because they are good enough, clutch enough, tough enough, bold enough and resilient enough.

They have the type of defense that wins championships — and defense wins in January.

They have a quarterback who can put three-and-a-half quarters of shaky football behind him to deliver in the end.

And they have coaches who bet on their players in a way they didn’t always last year.

You can’t talk Super Bowl contenders without including the Broncos. The national pundits must stand up and take notice. They belong.

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