The Denver Broncos may have a legitimate shot at making the postseason in 2024. What are their updated playoff odds as Week 7 comes to a close? As of now, before Monday Night Football, the Denver Broncos are the eighth seed in the AFC playoff picture. They trail the Indianapolis Colts, as Indy sits in that seventh seed.
As it stands now, the AFC simply is not nearly a good as many people thought they would be coming into the 2024 NFL Season. Teams like the Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars, Cincinnati Bengals, and New York Jets aren't as good as we thought coming into the season - Denver has a better record than all of these teams after Week 7.
The Denver Broncos... can make the playoffs?
Well, if you look at the NFL Playoff Picture, with playoff odds from NFL Next Gen Stats, the Denver Broncos currently have a 52% chance to make the playoffs. That number is good for 7th-best in the NFL. Even though the Colts are ahead of the Broncos in the playoff picture and seeding, they only have a 42% chance to get in.
Denver beating the Carolina Panthers on Sunday would get them to 5-3 and would surely elevate their playoff chances. It's becoming more and more real as the season goes on, and it's not crazy to think that 5-3 is very much in view. However, in Week 9 and Week 10, they travel to face the Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs and could endure a two-game skid.
I've predicted that Denver will make the postseason in 2024 if they can come out of the next three games at 6-4 or even 7-3. Them being able to win two out of the next three would be flat-out huge.
The Broncos also play teams like the Colts, Bengals, Browns, and Atlanta Falcons. The three former teams don't seem as good as thought in 2024, and even though the Falcons have a ton of talent, they're just not a very physical team. We can't get in the habit of counting wins, but if you look at the Broncos' schedule the rest of the way, you can feasibly get the Broncos up to 10 wins.
This could be very, very real. Sure, Denver can end up crashing and burning down the stretch, as rookie QB Bo Nix could hit a rookie wall and start to struggle, but you just never know. Is it possible for the Denver Broncos to make the postseason t