The Denver Broncos will find answers to all of the questions about the 2022 NFL schedule on Thursday night.
The league is set to release its full schedule at 6:00 p.m. MT on Thursday and that is when Broncos fans will find out when each team will be slated to face the Broncos in 2022. We already know the list of opponents, we just need to know which week each team will be on the slate.
There are some other things we already know.
We know that the Broncos will travel to London to take on the Jacksonville Jaguars as part of the league’s ongoing international series. We also know that the team will take on the defending champion Los Angeles Rams on Christmas Day.
It will be interesting to see how the schedule shakes out when it is made public as that will open the door to start forecasting a lot of things for this team including the win-loss record and how the AFC West division could shake out.
Broncos 2022 schedule to be released on May 12 at 6:00 p.m. MT
For things to fall favorably for the Broncos, here are three things fans should be rooting for as part of the schedule release.
Avoid starting with divisional games
The AFC West will be quite challenging to navigate this year, and anyone who pays attention to the league can see that being the case. All four teams seem fairly loaded and ready to make a deep run in the playoffs but having to play each other twice each, makes things even more difficult.
All four of these teams will be able to make plenty of noise this season and to say that the Broncos are more talented than any of these teams, at least currently, would just be hopeful, wishful thinking.
The Kansas City Chiefs, Los Angeles Chargers and Las Vegas Raiders all made huge moves this offseason, and you can make the argument that all three of those teams are Super Bowl contenders.
For the Broncos, who will be the only team in that division with a new quarterback, getting things put together may take some time. So if the schedule is released and two of the first three opponents of the season come from this division, that may not be what you want to see.
Teams need time to build continuity and jell together and it will be easier to do that against lesser opponents than these three top contenders. Remember, even Peyton Manning lost two of his first three games in Denver.
This is not a race that the Broncos want to fall behind in and if they were to lose two of their first three games of the season and have both of those losses be within the division, they could fall out of the race early.
Start the season with some winnable games
The Broncos could not have asked for an easier schedule to start the 2021 season, getting the New York Giants, Jaguars and New York Jets to kick things off. That helped the team start the season 3-0, the team just wasn’t good enough to sustain it.
Would the Broncos get that same benefit two years in a row?
Starting out with the Jets, Carolina Panthers and Houston Texans would be an excellent way for Russell Wilson, Nathaniel Hackett and the new-look Broncos to start the year. That would give Wilson a chance to build something with his new teammates in real-game action to carry over later into the year when those bigger matchups are going to matter much more.
The Jets, for example, are a team that also has a chance to field a lot of talent this year following the wildly successful draft the team had and if the Broncos could get them early before they have a chance to put things together, that would be favorable.
Another example would be the San Francisco 49ers. By all accounts, one of the better teams in the NFC but what will they be with Trey Lance at quarterback? Getting them on the schedule earlier in the season could also be beneficial.
In other words, starting the season like they did last year would be big for the Broncos. A 3-0 start is one that could be sustained by the current squad.
End the season at home
For years, the league has scheduled the final week of the season to contain games that are all within the division. That makes for one exciting final week of football as division races play out.
The schedule gods have been in the favor of the Broncos when it comes to the final week of the season as the Broncos have not ended a season on the road since 2013. Unfortunately, for a team that has missed the playoffs six years in a row, it would be nice to get that little benefit one more time.
There is a great chance that the AFC West title race comes down to the last game of the season and there is also a solid chance that three and maybe even all four of those teams will be fighting for a Wild Card spot.
The AFC West, on paper, looks like the best division that the NFL has seen in quite some time. So many little things are going to be important and the timing of each game is chief among them.
If the Broncos could close out the season against the Chiefs, Raiders or Chargers, that could be an important key and could help decide anything from a division title to whether or not the Broncos even make the playoffs.