The Denver Broncos have work to do to get this roster improved in 2025, but the team is a lot closer to being where the Kansas City Chiefs are (representing the AFC in the Super Bowl) than anyone in the fan base is ready to acknowledge. It's been a grueling nine years since Super Bowl 50. The Broncos finally made the playoffs for the first time since the 2015-16 season this past year, ending the second-longest drought in the NFL.
But just because people thought this team was going to be bad in 2024 doesn't mean they were way ahead of schedule. The Broncos were simply better than inaccurate football prognosticators thought they would be. The Broncos won eight games in 2023 and improved by two wins in 2024 after improving the roster in the offseason.
Can they do it again in 2025? Why is it that people seem to doubt this team's potential of being even better in 2025? Is the perception of the fan base not in alignment with the team itself?
Broncos may be higher on themselves than even the fans in 2025
After the season ended against Buffalo, Broncos head coach Sean Payton was asked about the "gap" between his team and other teams in the AFC right now like Buffalo, Baltimore, Kansas City -- teams that are perceived to be true contenders. His answer was fascinating (with some added emphasis from myself):
“I’m telling you what, I didn’t see a gap last weekend until the second half. Then you see a gap because you’re losing, but I felt really confident we could go in there, and play well and win. We obviously didn’t play well enough. Those lines are much finer than we think. I use that term, ‘There’s a fine line between a groove and a rut.’ It’s a player, it’s two players, it’s the line of scrimmage, it’s the kicking game. We’re not looking backwards; we’re looking ahead, and it starts with the division.
There was a lot of confidence in this team that if we could get past that game, the next game we had to play, we felt real good about. Obviously we’re still not there yet, and yet we’re a lot closer than we were at this time [at the end of the season]. That was misery, sorrow, drudgery… Give me some other adjectives there… That was brutal. Let’s say that.”
- Broncos HC Sean Payton (via team PR)
Many people understandably made a big deal about Payton's comments at the end of that quote there in regards to the end of the Russell Wilson saga with the Broncos, but what he said just before that is arguably even more important. Payton implied that if the Broncos could find a way to beat the Buffalo Bills that they felt "real good" about going to Kansas City.
It's not that they put the cart before the horse, so to speak, but the Broncos proved they could beat Kansas City on the road earlier in the season. They simply didn't finish the job properly. And we saw special teams coordinator Ben Kotwica fired off the staff completely, not specifically because of that blocked field goal, but it makes you wonder...
The perception of the fan base seems to be that this Broncos team is truly 6-8 pieces on the roster away from competing in the AFC, while Sean Payton felt like the crew he had with $90 million in dead cap this past year could go to Kansas City in the divisional round and make noise.
It's true that the Broncos have to make adjustments and improvements to the roster, but it's also probably very true that the team is actually closer than many seem to think.