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A decade-long drought is over.
The Broncos are AFC West champions again.
The long wait ended Saturday evening in the midst of a long weekend for the Broncos, who beat Kansas City on Christmas night and then watched with joy as Houston knocked off the Los Angeles Chargers two days later.
That result cemented the Broncos’ status as division champions by knocking the Chargers to 11-5, two games behind with just a Week 18 tilt between the teams at Empower Field remaining.
Head coach Sean Payton has said since the beginning of the season that the team’s three goals, in order, are to win the division, earn the best seed possible and then play for a Super Bowl title.
Now the first of those goals is achieved. Next weekend Denver will play for the second.
The game against the Chargers loses some juice because, had Los Angeles won Saturday, it would have been a division championship game. Still, the stakes are plenty high for Payton’s team. A win secures the No. 1 seed in the AFC, a bye through the Wild Card round and the assurance that the playoffs will run through Denver as long as the Broncos are playing.
Regardless of what happens in Week 18 — the NFL sets the playing slate after Week 17 action finishes, meaning the Broncos and Chargers could play Saturday or Sunday — Denver is assured of a top-3 seed in the conference and a home playoff game.
The difference between the top spot and any other, though, should be plenty to keep Payton’s team motivated as it returns to the practice field this week.
“We have to play the final game and we have to take care of it,” quarterback Bo Nix said Thursday night after beating the Chiefs but before the division was secured. “They’re going to be a good football team. Some other team could help us along the way, but at the end of the day, it is going to come down to us vs. them. We’re excited to have them at home. It is going to be a really good environment and atmosphere. It’s honestly a playoff atmosphere. It is going to be tough.”
Now the Chargers have only seeding to play for, but Jim Harbaugh’s team has been a thorn in Payton’s side. Harbaugh to date is 3-0 against Denver since returning to the NFL before the 2024 season.
“I haven’t beaten them, but it is going to be a good nine days of preparation,” Nix said. “On the tenth day, it will be all you have got for four quarters or however long it takes.
“We’re excited about it. It will be good to have rest. It’ll be a good long weekend for us.”
It already has been.
The Broncos last won the AFC West in 2015 and followed it with a run to a Super Bowl victory. Peyton Manning retired after that season and the next fall Kansas City began a nine-year reign over the division.
Denver cycled through head coaches and quarterbacks. Eventually general manager George Paton succeeded John Elway in 2021 and Payton arrived two years later.
They drafted Nix at No. 12 overall in April 2024 and mounted a surprise playoff run that fall. After the Broncos fell, 31-7, to Buffalo in the Wild Card round as the No. 7 seed, Payton made the next stage of Denver’s growth clear: They had to host postseason games rather than traveling to hostile environs to play them.
They put themselves in position to do so despite a shaky start to the season. When the Chargers won on a walk-off field goal in Week 3, Denver fell to 1-2 and Harbaugh’s team rolled to 3-0.
Then the Broncos mounted one of the most successful runs in franchise history, reeling off 11 straight wins and vaulting from a team staring at questions galore to one in control of the AFC.
After a Week 16 loss to Jacksonville, Denver bounced back quickly to beat an injury ravaged Chiefs team at Arrowhead Stadium and re-assert its control over its own fate.
Now a nice piece of symmetry heading into next week: In 2015 the Broncos beat the Chargers in the regular season finale to secure the No. 1 seed. That team, of course, went on to win the Super Bowl.
Payton and several players on this team said they’d have no qualms with winning the division while watching from their couches. All-Pro right guard Quinn Meinerz said he’d be watching and “the feet will be up.”
Now the Broncos can raise glasses, too.
Payton said he didn’t talk about the 10-year drought with his team through this season because, “because those are someone else’s demons. I heard that all the time in New Orleans. ‘You’ve never won a playoff game.’ That’s not this team. You can’t fight those other demons.”
For at least a couple of Broncos, though, those demons are well-known.
Left tackle Garett Bolles arrived in 2017 and wide receiver Courtland Sutton a year later. They experienced the postseason return a year ago but neither has been on a team like this one, sitting at 13-3, now crowned division champion and about to play for the AFC’s top seed.
“You can’t knock the wins,” Sutton said. “You can’t knock the effort that goes into us being able to put together the wins that we have. I love this team, man, we have nothing but great character and great competitors in this locker room. I’m just grateful to be a part of it and I’m looking forward to the near future and what we continue to put together.”
You can’t take the division title away from the 2025 Broncos, either. They’ve secured it going into the final week of the season and now can turn their attention to even bigger goals.
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Parker Gabriel
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