Here is what I posted in this subreddit just after the draft: https://www.reddit.com/r/DenverBroncos/s/clscHoXE05

I’m not claiming to be an expert-level football analyst. To be completely honest, my understanding probably leans more towards beginner than advanced, so my prediction for how Bo would do in the league was really just a guess. What I could provide was my observations from watching Oregon games and being an Oregon fan.

It was so exhausting/frustrating seeing all of the narratives being pushed about Bo that even I knew were false or misrepresentative. For example, the concerns about his age, deep ball accuracy, and being “spoiled” by playing for a stacked Oregon team. Unrelated to football, any Oregon fan would’ve told you how great of a person he was and also how well he balanced maturity/professionalism while not having the personality of a 2x4, so I’m glad it seems that this is all still true.

For a fun comparison, look the reception difference in another post I made about Bo in the Patriots subreddit (who I support, but let’s ignore that please). Spoiler, they did not Bolieve: https://www.reddit.com/r/Patriots/s/8UWnXMp7OD

Here’s my required statement: He’s focused. He’s having fun. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a dark horse for the OROY.

If you need more Bo Nix content, watch his masterclass performance on September 23, 2023 where he led Oregon to a 42-6 victory and went 28/33 for 276 yards and 4 total TDs. This specific game was definitely not picked for any particular reason, I promise.

Just wanted to shout out our long snapper

Anyone else feel like we should have signed Bonitto to an extension before Cooper. They’re both great just wondering if they should have prioritized Bonitto over Coop.

Wild Card Race

The AFC wild card race got a lot more complicated this week, with there now being 3 teams sitting at 8 wins. We are currently still sitting in the 7th seed, as the Chargers already had their bye and the Ravens own the head-to-head over us. Right now, we can look at 3 scenarios for the wild card seedings:

1. Ravens and Broncos tied

The Ravens will always win a tie-breaker against us, provided that we are the only 2 teams with the same record. There's not much complexity here; we just really want to avoid this scenario since we always lose.

2. Chargers and Broncos tied

If we tie with the Chargers, head-to-head will be the first consideration. They won the first matchup, so they will always have the head-to-head if they win the next one. If we split the series, the next tie-breaker is our division records. Assuming the Chargers handle the Raiders later this season, this tie-breaker essentially just comes down to whether or not one of us can beat the Chiefs. If we both lose or we both lose, then we will need to move on to the next tie-breaker, which is win percentage in common games. Funnily enough, we tend to win and lose the same games as the Chargers (which I guess is why we are tied in the first place), so this one would come down us vs the Bengals and them vs the Bucs. Most likely, a tie will be broken by this point...but if it is not, then we would move onto strength of victory and strength of schedule. The Chargers currently have an edge in SoV, but that will even out if we win the same games to get to this point. Currently, our strengths of schedule happen to be tied, but it will likely deviate by the end of the season. If we somehow get to this point...root for the Seahawks and against the Cardinals.

3. 3-way tie

In the event of a 3-way tie, division tie-breakers are applied first to eliminate either us or the Chargers, and then head-to-head is used to break a tie between the remaining teams. This essentially means that the Ravens will always win in a 3-way tie as they have beaten both of us.

Based on the tie-breaking procedures, you can generally assume that the Ravens have the inside track to the 5 seed, and the 6 and 7 seed will be a mess to figure out. Realistically, we will need to finish a game ahead of both teams if we want the 5 seed.

In addition to the Ravens losing and the Chargers winning to set up that convoluted wild card picture, we also saw the Dolphins get stomped by Green Bay, which ended their winning streak and made it even more important for them to play perfectly down the stretch. We're not in the clear yet though, as the 49ers seem like they are on the verge of shutting down for the year and possibly handing the Dolphins an easy victory. From their perspective, the Dolphins have a good shot at making the playoffs if they win out (but will need some help), and an outside chance of making it if they win 4 of their remaining 5 games. From our perspective, we can stop worrying about them as soon as we win 1 more game and they lose 1 more. That sets up week 15 as a huge week for both of us. If we beat the Colts and they lose to the Texans, it's over. However if we lose and they win, we might be in trouble.

Speaking of the Colts, they managed to sneak ahead of the Patriots and get back to within a game of .500. Like us, they are also on a bye next week before our huge matchup. We should be able to handle them, but Anthony Richardson is playing much better now than he has in the past and it can be very hard to stop a mobile quarterback, so this will be an exciting game and it will likely be the difference maker in the AFC playoff picture. Now that we've picked up our 8th win, the Colts cannot beat our record if we beat them and they will lose any tie-breakers between us. That means that if we win in 2 weeks, we can stop worrying about the Colts.

Finally, the Bengals lost to the Steelers to pick up their 8th loss. We can't completely eliminate them, but it looks like they're done for the year and we may be lucky enough to play against some backups in our matchup later this year.

The Browns, Titans, and Jets are all facing elimination scenarios this week, meanwhile the Patriots, Jaguars, and Raiders were all eliminated this week. Keep in mind, though, that upsets do happen and some of these teams could pull off a huge upset and change the playoff picture dramatically.

Finally, I would estimate that we have around a 75% chance of making the playoffs. There's only 2 other teams left standing, and we play one of them next. If we beat the Colts, we will have all but clinched the playoffs. Even if we lose, we will still likely have around a 50% chance of making the post-season.

Week 14 Key Games & Rooting Interests

1. Seahawks @ Cardinals - Honestly this is a stretch since there are not many key games this week. This one marginally helps with some deep tie-breakers as we lost to the Seahawks and the Chargers lost to the Cardinals.

2. Chargers @ Chiefs - We need the Chargers to lose as many games as possible as it will allow us to move up in the playoff field and avoid potential tie-breakers. This is an especially big one as division record is the first tie breaker for teams in the same division.

Also, this will be my last post in the series, as I will be traveling for the holidays and there will be plenty of coverage of the playoffs now that we're only a few weeks out. It was really fun to make these posts and give everyone an early preview of the playoff picture, and I appreciate all the sweet comments that everyone made!

Do we want the Chargers to win so (if every team stays the same) we play the chiefs in the wild card round and not the bills?

Or do we want the chargers to lose so we move up in the seed position and potentially play the steelers or texans?

Why don’t any of the broncos do the mile high salute anymore I feel like that used to be a staple

I woke up today so satisfied. After four years in the NFL, Jerry Jeudy finally learned how to catch a football. He had a career night against us, and it was a great thing to see. Because after they played his shit talk on national TV, everyone watching got to watch his team lose in hilarious Browns fashion and his efforts become meaningless. He demanded a trade from a team he knew was rebuilding and got traded to a team who got carried to the playoffs last year by Flacco, then let him go, and is now sitting at 3-9. Today is a good day.

Dude has a cannon idk what people were on.