Denver has not played yet, and our model already has the Broncos as the AFC's best title shot
Updated
The Broncos open on Monday night against Kansas City, so the only thing that has changed since July is everyone else. That turns out to matter. When we re-ran the season with the first fifteen games of Week 1 in the books, Denver came out at eleven and a half wins with an 89 percent playoff chance, essentially the same record we had in the summer, and the title odds doubled from four percent to eight and a half. That is now the best championship number of any team in the AFC, and it happened because Cincinnati's division got harder, Houston lost at home, and the Broncos sat and watched.
The projection rests where it did in July, on the two things that win in the modern NFL. Bo Nix's line reads 4,397 yards and 28 touchdowns against twelve interceptions behind a passer rating above 95, a fraction off the summer projection and still the arc of a young quarterback stepping into the top tier of the position. The offense projects for 417 points, fourth in the league, and the third-most yards, which is a step up from the 13th-ranked grade we hung on it in the summer. The weapons are the reason, and one of them has run away with the projection.
Jaylen Waddle now projects for 122 catches and 1,699 yards with ten touchdowns, up from 100 and 1,363 in July, which would make him one of the two most productive receivers in the league by our numbers. Courtland Sutton settles into a second role at 68 catches and 885 yards, down from the 86 and 1,098 we had in the summer as Waddle absorbs more of the volume. Evan Engram emerges at 52 catches and five scores from the tight end spot. J.K. Dobbins carries the ground game just short of 1,000 yards and RJ Harvey adds 554 rushing and 42 catches as the change of pace. The arrival of a true alpha on the outside is the story of this offense, and the model is now treating Waddle as one.
The defense is the foundation, and it has not moved. Our model projects Denver allowing 309 points, seventh in the league, with more than 51 sacks, fourth in football, and nearly 14 interceptions, also fourth. Nik Bonitto projects for 13 sacks, Jonah Elliss, a rotational piece in the summer run, for nearly 12, and Zach Allen for eight from the interior. This is a front that gets home from three spots and a secondary that takes the ball away behind it, and it is intact in a way that the defenses in Buffalo, Kansas City and Minnesota are not. Continuity was the quiet edge in July and it is a louder one now.
The division is where the re-run changed the most. Kansas City slid to seven wins in our projection before playing a snap, with a defense that lost too much in the secondary and an offense that grades in the bottom third. The Chargers lost at home to Arizona and dropped to 8-9. The Raiders beat Miami and climbed to seven, which is fun and not a threat. When we ran the rest of the season, Denver won the AFC West by a wide margin on average and the Monday night game against the Chiefs projects as a Broncos win more often than not.
The market opened Denver in the mid nines, and in July our model sat two clear of it. It still does. Nothing has happened to close the gap because nothing has happened to Denver, and the market has not had a game to react to. This remains the team our model is most confident is better than the betting line, and the reasons are unchanged. A top-seven defense that travels, a quarterback trending toward the top of the position, and a receiver who just became a superstar in our numbers.
The path to being wrong is Nix's development stalling, as it was in the summer. If the leap does not come and he plays like a game manager, the offense leans on a defense that would then have to win games in the teens. It is the one variable that could pull this projection back toward the market. Everything else points up, and after a weekend in which the rest of the conference showed its flaws, the Broncos are the last AFC contender without one on the tape.
After Kansas City on Monday night, the schedule gets interesting fast. Jacksonville, the team our model just moved to twelve wins, comes to Denver in Week 2 in what projects as the best game of the early season. Then the Rams visit in Week 3, still without Myles Garrett but with Aaron Donald back, and the Broncos go to San Francisco in Week 4 and to the Chargers in Week 5. When we ran that stretch, Denver was favored in every game but one, the Rams, and a 4-1 start would have the Broncos exactly where the projection says they belong. It is a hard month. It is also the month in which a team can prove it is the best in the conference rather than just the best-graded.
So we take the over again, and we take it with more conviction than we did in July. Denver is the team to beat in the AFC West, the best title shot in the conference by our numbers, and the Monday night opener is the first chance to see whether the roster we graded is the roster that shows up.
