Buy or Sell Broncos' Playoff Chances? NFL Analyst Gives Curious Answer

Are the 2024 Denver Broncos legitimate playoff contenders?

Sep 8, 2024; Seattle, Washington, USA; Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton watches pregame warmups against the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field. / Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images

After a drubbing of the beaten-down New Orleans Saints, the Denver Broncos now sit at 4-3 on the season with an extremely winnable game this Sunday at home versus the equally woeful Carolina Panthers. Of course, the Broncos have arguably their toughest slate of games after Carolina — at Baltimore, at Kansas City, and vs. Atlanta — but in a year where most had written them off before the season even started, this team is very much in the thick of the AFC Wildcard picture.

Depending on where one looks, the Broncos have a 30%-50% chance of making the playoffs. Obviously, losing the head-to-head versus the Pittsburgh Steelers, and being down one versus the Los Angeles Chargers hurts, but they're in a fantastic position to contend down the stretch. Can the Broncos do that with a rookie quarterback and a roster so marred by dead cap?

In a recent episode of Yahoo Sports’ Football 301 podcast, hosts Nate Tice and Matt Harmon played a game of “buy or sell” with the topic of the Broncos as a playoff team this season — specifically, the team’s defense and run game. 

Harmon bought the Broncos defense and “kind of” bought them being a playoff team.

“My instinct originally was like ‘sell’ and I don’t know… But then I look at the standings. The Bengals? Get your s*** together. Dolphins? Really get your s*** together," Harmon said.

Further disparaging the rest of the middle class of the AFC including the Chargers and their struggling offensive supporting cast around Justin Herbert, Harmon buys into the Broncos’ playoff chances.

“The Broncos are a great defense. I think their defense rules. And Javonte Williams was, maybe it was just one week, and the Saints were packing it in, but he was second in offensive success rate on his carries last week among guys with 10-plus rushes per TruMedia… 21.4% of his rushes were for 10-plus yards. It felt like it I thought it was legit… This should be a team that just pounds the rock at this point. If Williams and the run game can come together, and all these other teams in the AFC can’t get their act together? Why not? Why not Denver?” Harmon said.

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Tice agreed with the logic of Harmon, stating “You did the exact math I did.”

“The Broncos are a great test example of what a great defense and a good run game can still do in the NFL. I know it’s a passing league, but you have to have a high baseline, at least some baseline to lean on. If you’re not going to have a good offense or stop the run, they’re going to pound it on you, and they’re going to make you work at it," Tice said.

Tice also touched on the Broncos' elusive offensive identity.

“That’s the Broncos identity this year. And the passing game is going to be based on how many shot plays Bo Nix can connect on. It’s not going to be down-to-down efficiency. That’s not how they’re going to be built to win. Not that they should be (that team) looking at their pass catchers," Tice said.

The duo would go on to discuss the dearth of top-end teams in the AFC outside of Kansas City, Baltimore and Buffalo. Beyond those teams, who else is emphatically better than what this Broncos team can be when it runs the ball as well as it did last week and play defense as good as it has all season?

Tice states that the Broncos “are as alive as anybody."

"They have some true strengths. They’re going to do it every week. So I’m buying that they could be a playoff team. I’m liking what I’m seeing. I always love a good strong run game, it’s Sean Payton so it’s just bully ball," Tice said.

The Takeaway

If the season were to end today, the Broncos would make the playoffs as the No. 7 seed. The Broncos will likely need better passing performances from their offense going forward to overcome the inevitable ebbs and flows and week-to-week variance from the defense and run game.

With the seventh-worst passing offense in EPA/Play at -0.129 and the fourth-worst passing success rate at 39.0%, can the explosive plays from the pass game (12.5% of passing plays), be enough to complement all the other areas on the Broncos currently performing at a high level? Only time will tell.

Denver has shown it can suffocate bad offenses with this defense and batter soft defenses with its rushing attack, but if it can do the same against substantially better teams, it could make or break this team's playoff chances.

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