After a shaky 1-2 start in 2025 that included two last-second losses, the Denver Broncos felt like a team that was not prepared to build off the breakout campaign back in 2024. Of course, all the team did after that was win 11 games in a row, some in flat-out dramatic fashion.
Denver ended the year with a 14-3 record, also earning the first seed in the AFC playoffs for the first time since 2015. It felt like things were lining up to be a repeat of that 2015 season, but a tragic Bo Nix broken ankle now has this entire franchise is quite the spot for 2026.
Well, it didn't take a lot of digging to find a statistic that the 2025 Broncos share with a recent Kansas City Chiefs team, potentially painting a bleak picture for 2026.
Denver Broncos won 11 one-score games in 2025, and so did the Chiefs in 2024
Back in the 2024 NFL Season, the Chiefs ended up going 15-2 and earned the top AFC playoff seed. During that season, the Chiefs ended up winning their first nine games, and then had a separate winning streak of six games. Not including the playoffs, the Chiefs also won 11 games by one score.
While not necessarily the most important statistic out there, teams that typically win most of their one-score games are the teams that are playing in late January and February. The 2025 Broncos also happened to win 11 one-score games.
In 2025, the Chiefs hit rock bottom at least based on their standards. The Chiefs were 5-3 at one point in 2025, but ended up finishing just 6-11 on the season, and even when Patrick Mahomes was healthy, the Chiefs struggled, as Mahomes was just 6-8 as a starter in 2025.
The Broncos surely don't want to fall into this same regression in 2026. Fortunately, Denver's roster is significantly better than anything the Chiefs fielded the past two seasons, but it's not a shock that some across the NFL landscape are calling for a Denver regression.
The main argument here is that all of those one-score game wins just can't sustain year-over-year given how slim of margins those victories are. Denver is far from a perfect team, and some of those wins in 2025 were shaky, at best.
It did feel like the Broncos were playing down to some of their opponents last year, and given how talented that group was, there wasn't a clear reason for it. Fortunately, adding someone like Jaylen Waddle on offense should help that entire unit. It did feel like the pass-catchers were all punching up a class, but not in a good way.
Defensively, the team will have to figure out how to replace the released Dre Greenlaw and departed John Franklin-Myers. If those two spots don't see much of a regression, the Broncos could end up being better in 2026.
At the end of the day, it's not likely that the Broncos again win 11 games in a row in 2026. That type of win streak is just not that common in today's NFL. There also is a non-zero chance that the Broncos win fewer games in 2026 but feel like a more complete team.
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