Broncos’ goal should now be winning the AFC West in 2025

The Denver Broncos will be dreaming big in 2025.

After all, the team made the playoffs for the first time since 2015 this past season. Bo Nix looks like a franchise quarterback. Sean Payton is a top-10 head coach in the NFL. The defense has a core that can be trusted for years to come.

Those are all givens, that coming off a 10-7 season, improvement is the expectation. Broncos Country is hoping their team goes at least 11-6 next year if not 12-5 or 13-4.

But what happened on Sunday in New Orleans should make a new goal even more clear. Denver, for the first time in a long time, has a realistic chance of winning the AFC West in 2025.

Andrew Mason was at the Super Bowl and penned a beautiful column about how the Kansas City Chiefs getting humiliated by the Philadelphia Eagles means the Broncos are closer than you might think.

I mean, come on. That game was 34-0 Eagles and 40-6. The final score of 40-22 was nowhere near as close as what everyone watched. The Chiefs got their tails kicked in, shrinking in the biggest moment in sports.

None of this is to say that Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid aren’t great. Mahomes is the second best quarterback in NFL history, still behind Tom Brady. Reid is a top-5 coach ever, whose team just had a bad night at the worst possible time.

But as Mase outlines, this could be the beginning of the end for Kansas City. And that’s great news for Denver fans. No one is realistically predicting a Lombardi Trophy for the Broncos next season, but a division title doesn’t feel like it’s out of the realm of possibility.

The Chiefs have won the AFC West an incomprehensible nine times in a row. They’ve done it with records as good as 15-2 and as “bad” as 10-6. During that stretch, Denver’s best record is 10-7. It’s been pure and total domination.

But K.C. also had a lot of games go their way this past season that felt like escapes. Or maybe even pure luck. Take the 35-yard blocked field goal at the buzzer against the Broncos. Nix and the offense did everything right. Unfortunately, the special teams unit couldn’t execute a high-school level play.

And that wasn’t the only Chiefs win that defied logic. They could’ve lost to the Ravens, Bengals, Falcons, Buccaneers, Panthers, Raiders and Chargers as well. Even if they go 4-3 in those games, they finish 12-5. A 3-4 mark would’ve resulted in an 11-6 record.

You get the point, this was much more of a “good” team than a “great” team. The breaks tend to even out, and that’s what could happen in 2025. Especially with Kansas City looking old, slow and outmatched against Philadelphia in the Super Bowl.

This is Denver’s chance to pounce. If they can push their record to 12-5 next year, the division is a very attainable goal. Coming off that embarrassing defeat it wouldn’t shock anyone if the Chiefs went 11-6 in this upcoming campaign.

We’ve got a long offseason ahead in which Payton and GM George Paton are going to be busy. They need to nail free agency and the NFL Draft, providing Nix more weapons on offense and re-loading the defense.

Those are all conversations and debates that will be had during the coming weeks. In the meantime, it’s clear the Broncos can win the AFC West in just 11 short months.

This is what makes sports fun. We can adjust our expectations in real time.

No one thought Denver taking the division was realistic in the middle of a K.C. dynasty. But maybe that dynasty is coming to a close, and the window for the Broncos is just opening.