The Denver Broncos are 3-9 and haven’t won a game since Oct. 1, but somehow aren’t officially eliminated from the playoffs. The AFC West is out of reach, but a convoluted scenario that ends with the Broncos on top of a four-way tie for the second wild card berth in the AFC still exists.
The Broncos can still make the playoffs — if these 27 results go just right
If everything goes perfectly, the Broncos could win a four-way tie for an AFC Wild Card berth.
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In that scenario, the Broncos can win the group tie over the Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans by way of a strength of victory tiebreaker.
But to even get there, it would take a long list of results going right for the Broncos, including Denver shaking an eight-game losing streak to win the final four games of the season.
Here’s an example of how it could all go down:
Week 14
Week 15
Week 16
Week 17
- Broncos over the Chiefs
- Bengals over the Ravens
- Dolphins over the Bills
- Raiders over the Chargers
- Texans over the Colts
It’s not exactly a concrete list and does have a little bit of wiggle room. It’s necessary that the Ravens lose out, the Bengals lose their next three, and the Texans lose just one of their last three. But the AFC West title can go to either the Raiders or the Chiefs, so long as the Broncos finish ahead of the Chargers for second in the AFC West and are thus in the wild card tiebreaker.
The scenario is so goofy that even the ESPN Playoff Machine doesn’t quite get it and awards the Chargers second place via the common opponents tiebreaker, although Denver and Los Angeles would be tied if this list of games went down correctly.
Will it happen? Absolutely not.
Just the Broncos winning four consecutive games sounds impossible considering how bad they’ve been in the last two months. Then they’d need results like the Browns beating the Ravens in Week 15.
Denver’s chances at the playoffs are about as far-fetched as it gets, but for now, they’re still technically alive.
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