The one positive with Thursday Night Football is that the winning team gets the job done early and has a few more days to relax, rest, and recover for the following week. Fortunately, for the Denver Broncos, both of their Thursday games here in 2025 resulted in wins.
Now, yes, the wins were ugly at best, but a win is a win, and it looks the same in the win column. Now at 13-3 on the year, Denver is back atop the NFL and will be watching the rest of Week 17 unfolds and rooting for certain teams. There is a path for the Broncos to clinch the top seed in Week 17, but that would take a lot.
The more realistic scenario is the team clinching the AFC West title, but even that isn't a guarantee. Denver, however, can still hope that the Houston Texans beat the Los Angeles Chargers. The Texans could gift the Broncos a late Christmas gift if they do so.
Houston wins, and Denver wins the AFC West for the first time in 10 years
The game is in Los Angeles, but the Texans match up nicely with the Chargers. LA's offensive line has see endless combinations in 2025, as both Joe alt and Rashawn Slater are out for the year with injuries, and even other players along the OL have gotten banged up.
Unfortunately for the Bolts' offense, they have to deal with an explosive Texans' defensive line and a stingy secondary. Houston is the best scoring defense in the NFL this year and also have 41 sacks on the year and have intercepted 17 passes. Four different Texans' players have four interceptions, so this secondary is simply dominant.
The ideal scenario here is that the the Houston DL can get home and force Justin Herbert into some difficult decisions. This could allow the secondary to take advantage of some poorly thrown passes. But what happens next if the Chargers lose to the Texans? How will the Broncos operate?
Denver would go into their Week 18 game with the AFC West wrapped up, but there is a very real possibility that the no. 1 seed is not wrapped up. In that case, the Broncos aren't going to rest any notable players and will instead try and tee-off against the LA offensive line to win that game and earn the top seed.
However, if the Broncos have everything go there way and they go earn the top seed heading into Week 18, the Broncos would surely rest some starters and not risk any injuries to high-end players. The Chargers would also still have Wild Card seeding to play for, so even if they were to lose in Week 17, they could have a lot to play for themselves in Week 18.