Denver Broncos: Week 17 Predictions and NFL Pick’em

After four months, the final week of the NFL regular season is here. Here are our staff predictions for the Denver Broncos and the rest of the NFL games.

As always, its been quite a fun NFL season. But as Denver Broncos fans have grown accustomed to, the season is ending after just 16 games for our favorite team, marking the fourth straight year without a playoff appearance.

Yet, this year feels remarkably different. There is hope and excitement for the future of this squad after seeing what young signal-caller Drew Lock has done over his first four NFL games (and soon to be fifth). And while five games aren’t usually considered enough of a sample size to judge a quarterback (good or bad), keep in mind that it was enough for John Elway to realize he made a monumental mistake with Paxton Lynch. So, I guess take that for whatever it’s worth.

With Drew Lock at the helm, the Denver Broncos are taking on the hated Oakland Raiders in what appears to be a meaningless game. There are no playoffs on the line for Denver, only draft position. But let me be clear, this isn’t just a meaningless end of season game.

As Sayre Bedinger alluded to an article earlier this week, with a win the Denver Broncos will have beaten a division rival, knocked said division rival out of the playoff picture for good, and ended 2019 on a high note.

Yes, a better draft position is nice, but momentum and excitement can be contagious, and it can give the Denver Broncos something to build off of as they head into 2020 with plenty of draft picks and a significant amount of cap space.

And after winning three of the last four, Denver Bronco fans are feeling pretty good about the chances tomorrow afternoon, which includes our group of contributors at Predominantly Orange.

In this week’s NFL Pick’em, we unanimously chose the Denver Broncos over the Oakland Raiders, and while some may point out we are biased given our allegiances, I’ll have you know that I have picked Denver to win just six games this entire season.

In addition to our unanimous selection of Denver, our group feels the Bills will take care of the Jets despite having essentially nothing to play for with the number five spot locked in. We also feel like two of the three teams battling for top spots in the NFC (Green Bay and New Orleans) will come away victorious tomorrow afternoon against the Lions and Panthers, respectively.

The only other unanimous selection on the day is our choice of the Dallas Cowboys over the Fighting Case Keenum’s in Washington. I’m not sure if that says more about our trust in Dallas to win at home or our lack of trust in Keenum to do anything meaningful after last year’s quarterback play in Denver.

Out of the other eleven games, five of the games were near-unanimous decisions, which could only mean one thing: chaos is about to ensue tomorrow.

As long as the Denver Broncos make sure Oakland loses its final game as a California resident, then I am all for the chaos.

Enjoy the final week of the NFL regular season, and what hopefully is the final year of the Denver Broncos four-year playoff drought.