Dark Horses: Are the Broncos Sleeper Contenders?
The Denver Broncos currently find themselves in a rather peculiar situation entering the 2025 season. They’re a team on the upswing, posting their best regular season record and first playoff appearance since their Super Bowl run back in 2015. That said, they only finished third in their division and had to sneak into the final Wild Card spot in the very last week of the season. Could this team be on the cusp of a breakout in 2025?
Let’s get the obvious obstacles to the 2025 Denver Broncos out of the way first. This past season showed that the Broncos may not be ready to hang with the “big boys” of the NFL. The Broncos were solidly dominated by the Buffalo Bills in their Wild Card game matchup, losing by 24 points. During the regular season, they posted a 2-3 record against teams that made the playoffs that year, but even that is a technicality, as one of those wins was against a Kansas City Chiefs team that was resting all of its valuable players after locking up the number one seed. To make any kind of serious playoff run, the Broncos need to be able to measure up to the heavy hitters of the league.
There is no important place for the Broncos to establish themselves as winners than among their rivals in the AFC West. They swept the Raiders during the season, but couldn’t get a single win against the Chargers, who would rank ahead of the Broncos in both playoff seeding and divisional ranking. They were able to score a win against the benchwarmers of Kansas City, but when it came down to it, they lost to the Chiefs’ actual starters, including in a game where they were a blocked kick away from victory. While the Chiefs would get walloped in the Super Bowl, they still became AFC Champions, and therefore established themselves once again as the team everyone in the conference, including the Broncos, needs to beat to chase a Lombardi trophy. Simply put, the Chargers and Chiefs had the Broncos’ number when it mattered most last season, and with some serious firepower from the 2025 NFL Draft, the Raiders may not stay a reliable punching bag for Denver next season.
With all these obstacles and negative takeaways, how could anyone be confident that 2025 could be a majorly successful year for the Broncos? To answer that, let’s go back to that aforementioned blocked kick that cost them a victory against Kansas City. In the last seconds of the game, Denver had the Chiefs dead to rights. They had walked into Arrowhead Stadium, faced the defending Super Bowl Champions, and gone blow for blow with them. By killing the last few minutes of the game with a smothering offensive drive to set up a very makeable, 35-yard winning field goal, Denver had outdueled and outplayed Kansas City when it mattered most. If it weren’t for a fluke block by Chiefs linebacker Leo Chenal, the Broncos would have slain the biggest dragon in the league in its lair.
This episode became emblematic of the Broncos’ regular-season losses in 2024. Six out of seven of the Broncos’ regular-season losses were by one score, with the only non-competitive losses coming against the Baltimore Ravens in Week Nine and the Wild Card round against the Bills. Meanwhile, nine of the Broncos’ ten wins were by more than one score. In short, when the Broncos lost, they usually put up a solid fight, and when they won, they won decisively.
The single biggest reason to be anticipating a great 2025 Broncos season comes down to their measurably elite defense. Cornerback Patrick Surtain II anchored Denver’s defensive unit, winning Defensive Player of the Year for his efforts. Meanwhile, they posted the third-best scoring defense in the league and led the NFL in sacks by a large margin. The adage of defense winning championships may be cliche, but it rings true in Denver’s history; they last won the Super Bowl in 2015, led by an elite defense that carried Peyton Manning to a ring during the single worst statistical season of his career.
In good news for the Broncos, their starting QB is not a worn-down legend at the end of his playing days. Instead, Denver’s quarterback is a young, exciting prospect entering his sophomore season in the league. Bo Nix put together a very solid season, especially for a rookie QB thrust into a starting role, coming in third for Offensive Rookie of the Year voting. While the team was largely lacking in offensive playmakers, Courtland Sutton established himself as the team’s undisputed number one option, racking up over 1000 receiving yards. Denver also has a secret weapon on special teams in Marvin Mims, who earned First Team All-Pro honors as a punt returner this year, as well as Second Team All-Pro honors the year before as a kick returner.
Going into the 2025 season, the Broncos stand ready and hopeful to turn the corner into being a legitimate contender in the AFC. Their picks in the 2024 NFL Draft saw a balanced approach to boosting their roster, drafting three offensive playmakers, three defenders, and a punter. The Broncos' objectives going into the draft were to give Nix more weapons and to keep fueling their fantastic defensive unit. If those offensive picks turn into real contributors, Surtain and the defense remain at their elite production, and Bo Nix continues to develop as positively as he did as a rookie, there should be little surprise when the Denver Broncos turn into a real force to be taken seriously in the AFC and the league at large.
