Even after a 1-2 start during the 2025 NFL Season, the Denver Broncos managed to finish with 14 wins and earned the AFC's top playoff seed. For whatever reason, Sean Payton-coached teams have historically started slow in the month of September, and during his time with the Broncos, the team has never been better than .500 in the first month of football.
The Broncos play one more game in September, and it's a big one, as the Los Angeles Rams come to town for a Sunday Night Football tilt. Denver and Los Angeles both lost in their respective conference championship games last year and are capable of winning it all. While we're just a few weeks into 2026, the Broncos already have a huge opportunity in front of them.
With the Los Angeles Chargers starting 0-3, losing to the Buffalo Bills this week, the Broncos have a massive change to see a two-game lead over LA right before the bulk of the season begins.
The Denver Broncos can already get two games up on the Chargers with a SNF win
The Chargers lost another ugly game, as they dropped a stinker to the Bills and have honestly looked dreadful each week this year. Los Angeles has a ton of issues, as this team is poorly coached overall, but they also don't have the personnel to make up for any shortcomings with their coaching.
Now 0-3, the Chargers now have, roughly, a 4 percent chance to make the playoffs this year:
Since the NFL changed the playoff system in 2020, 16% (8/51) have made the playoffs from an 0-2 start.
— Ben Rolfe (@BenRolfePFN) September 24, 2026
That number drops to 4% with an 0-3 start (1/25).
You never want to say a Week 3 game is must-win, but the Falcons are very much staring down the barrel tonight pic.twitter.com/eCbDrZglg4
But, beyond that, the Broncos, with a win on Sunday Night Football, have a chance to get a two-game lead over the chargers just two weeks before the teams meet in Week 5 on October 11th. If the Broncos were to enter Week 5 with a 2-2 record, and the Chargers with a 1-3 record, for example, a Denver victory in that scenario would give the Broncos a 3-2 record and a quick win over a division rival, dropping the Chargers to 1-4 in the process, which would, essentially, be a three-game lead given the head-to-head victory.
Yes, these are hypotheticals, but getting this type of advantage over an AFC West foe that has gone 11-6 over the past two years would be huge, as the Broncos won the division with games to spare last year, but it might not be that seamless this year.
Every single win the Broncos had was extremely valuable in 2025, as the team would have fallen to the third seed in the AFC playoffs had they won one fewer game, and while this is a marathon, not a sprint, getting to 2-1 early in the season while the Chargers sit at 0-3 would be a near best-case scenario for the orange and blue.
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