ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — The Denver Broncos are pretty good at winning ugly.
They tied a franchise record with 14 victories but didn't exactly roll over their opponents. Eleven of their victories required
comebacks and the same number were by one score.
“It doesn’t have to be aesthetically pleasing to be effective,” coach Sean Payton said after Denver's 20-13 win at Kansas City on Christmas night against Chiefs third-string quarterback Chris Oladokun, who was elevated to starter last month when Patrick Mahomes and backup Gardner Minshew got hurt.
If their first win at Arrowhead Stadium since 2015 comes with an asterisk, so be it.
Payton's mantra all season was that style points mean nothing. After all, the Broncos won their first AFC West crown in a decade, ending the Chiefs' nine-year reign atop the division, and he didn't care how it looked.
The Los Angeles Chargers sat most of their best players for their Week 18 trip to Denver, and the Broncos never found the end zone offensively, settling for four field goals and watching defensive back Ja'Quan McMillian score their only touchdown on a pick-6 for a gritty 19-3 win.
That secured the No. 1 seed over the New England Patriots, who also finished 14-3 but lost the tiebreaker to Denver, going 5-1 against common opponents to Denver's 6-0. The difference was New England's 20-13 loss at home to the Las Vegas Raiders on opening weekend.
Although the Broncos went 0 for 3 in the red zone in their regular-season finale, Payton said winning the AFC's No. 1 seed was enough to mitigate concerns over Denver's offensive hiccups.
“Look, am I ever happy? No,” Payton said. “But we shouldn’t be as coaches. ... There are some things when we watch that film that we’ll be like, ‘Ah.’ When people ask, ‘What’s the benefit of the 1 seed?’ Many will say it’s the rest. I personally think it’s the elimination of a game that you don’t have to play.”
The Broncos will learn their divisional opponent this weekend, and next week they'll host their first playoff game in 10 years.
The Broncos went 8-9 in 2023, Payton's first year in Denver. Parting with quarterback Russell Wilson after that season saddled the Broncos with a record $53 million in dead cap charges last season and another $32 million in 2025.
Payton, general manager George Paton and the Penner-Walton ownership family deftly navigated that whopping $85 million charge as Denver ended an eight-year playoff drought last year and led the AFC this season.
“I think it’s just all the people upstairs finding the right people to be in the building,” linebacker Nik Bonitto said. “That’s why you’ve kind of seen that growth every year with our team and it’s all leading up to right now, us being the 1 seed and being one of the best teams in football. It’s just been a three-year span of continuously trying to grow and have the right people in the building.”
Long before anyone considered the Broncos contenders for the Super Bowl, Payton said back in training camp that this was a special group capable of winning it all, and free-agent acquisition Talanoa Hufanga said he shared that sentiment.
“The minute he said it (I looked) around the group of guys that we got, blue-collar workers,” Hufanga said. “We show up every day, and our job is to get things done. It may not look pretty.”
Like last week.
“I know a lot of people want it to be a 30-0 score, but a win is a win,” Hufanga said. “We have to go back to the drawing board, figure it out so we come back and get another win next time.”
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