The Denver Broncos won 14 regular season games during the 2025 season, but so did the New England Patriots. Denver ended up winning the tiebreaker over New England for the AFC's top playoff seed, as the Patriots had actually lost to the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 1 of that year.
And since the Broncos had a higher common-opponent winning percentage, they earned that top seed. Well, the Patriots and Broncos do share some common opponents this year, so every game could matter.
Had the Broncos gone 13-4 and not 14-3, for example, they would have fallen all the way down to the third seed, as they had lost to the Jacksonville Jaguars, who finished 13-4 last year. Anyway, with the 2026 NFL Season kicking off on Wednesday, the Broncos may have just seed one of their former quarterbacks do them a huge favor.
Denver Broncos just saw their former QB help defeat the reigning AFC champions
Because of course, former Broncos' QB Drew Lock and current Seahawks backup had to enter the game after just a handful of plays due to Sam Darnold suffering an injury. In the game, Lock ended up going 16/22 for 187 yards and one touchdown, earning a 113.3 passer rating.
Seattle scored 10 points in the fourth quarter to win 13-10. Patriots' QB Drake Maye had a pretty horrific second half and got out-played by Lock, going 23/33 for 178 yards, one touchdown, and three interceptions.
Maye actually tossed all three of those interceptions in the fourth quarter and handed the victory to the Seahawks. While Maye absolutely lost this game for the Patriots, Lock more than held his own and honestly performed better than the average backup should have.
The Broncos and Patriots actually do play each other during the 2026 regular season, as the two teams square off in Week 17, so while that head to head matchup is going to be much more important than what we saw in Week 1, there would be a potential scenario playing out that could still give Denver a higher seed if they were to lose to the Patriots.
Let's just say, for example, the Broncos lose to the Patriots in Week 17, but win the AFC West and finish 12-5. Let's continue this and say that the Patriots finish 11-6 and win the AFC East. In this scenario, despite Denver losing to New England, their better record would net them a higher playoff seed.
While this may not seem like a super crucial thing now, it absolutely could be when the playoff race starts heating up. And for Lock, a former second-round pick of the Broncos back in 2019, his relief of Darnold was the best-possible thing the Seahawks could have asked for.
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