As the Denver Broncos into the final week of the regular season, there is still one major item left on head coach Sean Payton’s checklist for the regular season. If Denver can knock off the Chargers, who are starting most of their backups this week, then they clinch the top seed in the conference. The Broncos are just one win away from ensuring that the road to Super Bowl 60 in Santa Clara runs through Denver.
The Broncos lose, and the door opens up to a wide array of possibilities. The Broncos can still finish anywhere between the first and third spot in the playoff bracket, and their competitors for the top spot aren’t facing much of a challenge on their own this week. The Patriots are facing a seventh-round quarterback without his best weapons, and the Jaguars are facing one of the worst teams in the entire league.
If the Broncos do manage to lose this game and don’t receive any help, they’ll be hosting a playoff game next weekend. In that case, the Broncos will host one of a trio of teams that make up easily the strongest NFL wild-card trio since the playoffs expanded. With such a giant discrepancy between outcomes, it is good to know which teams it’s possible Denver faces early on.
These are the possible playoff scenarios for the Broncos entering Week 18
If the Broncos do not wrap up the top spot in the conference, they’ll host a Wild Card Weekend game next week. None of the wild-card seeds have been collected in the AFC yet, meaning the Broncos could face any of the three teams in those spots. Denver went one and one against those teams so far this year, with the wing coming over a Texans team that mostly played without CJ Stroud. Josh Allen is going to be by far the best player in the playoffs, and he absolutely obliterated Vance Joseph and the Broncos defense in last year’s first round of the playoffs.
If the Broncos can secure the only bye in the playoffs, they could face any team from the wildcards or the fourth seed, which will ultimately become the champion of the AFC North. Neither the Steelers nor the Ravens has been playing inspiring football this year, and both of these teams may have new head coaches next year.
The Broncos will not be able to play the other top two teams in the conference until a potential conference championship game, which would hopefully be in Denver. As we all know, the Jaguars went into Denver and handled the Broncos fairly easily just two weeks ago, but the Broncos would be ecstatic for any chance for revenge against them.
If they end up facing the Patriots in the conference championship game, it would be just another installment of a legendary series in the playoffs between the two franchises. The most recent installment might be the most iconic, as the final matchup between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning that propelled the Broncos to Santa Clara after Super Bowl 50, their last playoff win.
The extra week of rest would do wonders for the Broncos, and having to play any of these wildcard teams would be a difficult hand to be dealt. The easiest path for the Broncos would be through the top spot in the conference, and the easiest way they can get there is by picking up their 14th win of the season this weekend.