The Denver Broncos have not made it easy this year, but they are now winners of 11 games in a row and are atop the AFC. This team is the best in the NFL, period, as they now have the best record in the league, and that record is theirs and theirs only.
With the New England Patriots losing in Week 15, the Broncos gain a game on them and are inching closer to that first seed in the AFC, which would give them a bye and guarantee them homefield advantage during the NFL playoffs, which is what they had back in 2015.
At this point in time, the Broncos are indeed good enough to win the Super Bowl, and there is an old-school element to this team that Sean Payton has established with this franchise, and that was kind of on display in Week 15, and Payton even took in a step further with some of his postgame comments.
Sean Payton calls out the analytics crowd after massive Broncos' Week 15 win
Sean Payton pretty directly calls out the analytics crowd after the Broncos' huge win over the Packers:
Sean Payton on not relying on analytics and going for it on 4th down and 2-point conversions: "I know they want it to work, but it doesn't"
— Zac Stevens (@ZacStevensDNVR) December 15, 2025
This is a great way to sum up how analytics as a whole fit into the NFL - there is only so much room for these type of things, as a lot of times, the analytics cannot capture the real on-field product and realy too much on what the numbers say on pieces of paper.
All in all, Payton was probably correct in the fourth down and two-point decisions, but some things like that do not work out, and that is OK. The Broncos made enough plays to win, I am not sure the analytics folks would have agreed with how Denver went about their business in Week 15, but that is kind of the point as well...