Denver Broncos not afraid to think playoffs after beating Chiefs

DENVER — Wait a minute here. Let’s not get carried away.

Sure, the Broncos have won two in a row. Yes, they finally beat the Kansas City Chiefs and the Chiefs are the defending Super Bowl champs.

Still, the Broncos are 15th in the 16-team AFC with a 3-5 record. It seems a little premature, don’t you think, for the Broncos to suddenly think they can make the leap from 15th to one of the 7 teams that qualify for the AFC playoffs. Caution, it is said, is the better part of valor.

Which also means hold your Broncos. Shouldn’t the Broncos at least get to .500 before they start thinking about playing in mid-January? 

Best to enjoy the bye week and see what the Broncos can do in their first game back at Buffalo against Josh Allen and the perennial playoff-contending Bills before … Oh, phooey. Why not dream big?

“I think we definitely have a chance,’’ Broncos defensive tackle Zach Allen said Monday in a Zoom conference call with the local media. “We’re 3-5 right now, there’s still 9 games of football left, so there’s a lot of football left and that’s our expectation, to make it there. There’s really no reason why we can’t do it.”

A 1-5 start – with closely-contested losses to Las Vegas, Washington and the New York Jets — may eventually become too much for the Broncos to overcome. But now that the record is 3-5, the overcoming seems less daunting.

Given their remaining schedule, it’s not unrealistic to think the Broncos have a chance to go 6-3 in their final 9 games, which would leave them at 9-8. Four teams made the playoffs last year with records no better than 9-8.

“I feel the same way,’’ running back Javonte Williams said about the Broncos having playoff aspirations. “I feel like if the defense does their job, the offense does their job, we’ve got Marvin Mims back on special teams, I feel like if everybody is doing their job, yeah, I feel like the playoffs is the bare-minimum, though. We’re trying to make a Super Bowl run.”

Goodness. Amazing what a win against the Chiefs does for a team’s morale.

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