For the first time in several years, the Denver Broncos are being widely praised by national media outlets for making moves that have made their championship aspirations legitimate.
Although Peter King remains somewhat low on the Broncos’ chances, Pro Football Focus is buying the hype and views Denver as one of the NFL’s top contenders.
In their recently released offseason power rankings article, they ranked the Broncos as the seventh-best team in all of football.
“Denver catapulted itself into the contenders by trading for Russell Wilson, giving them their first legitimate championship-caliber passer since Peyton Manning,” PFF’s Sam Monson wrote. “Denver now has to craft an offense that gets the most out of Wilson while doing so without running into the same issues that the Seattle Seahawks had. Can Wilson be unleashed to be the best version of himself without eschewing too much of the quick, routine passes to make the offense among the league’s best?”
Monson raises a valid concern, but Wilson should have a run game potent enough to alleviate some of the need for a quick passing game, which he didn’t have his final seasons in Seattle.
Also, although PFF ranked the Broncos favorably relative to the rest of the NFL, they still rank as the third-best AFC West team (trailing the Chiefs at No. 4 and the Chargers at No. 5) and the fourth-best AFC team (the Buffalo Bills rank No. 1).
Notably, the Broncos find themselves ahead of AFC foes like the Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, and Baltimore Ravens, who round out Monson’s top 10.
The Raiders are comfortably ranked as the worst team in the division, at No. 16, but even still, they find themselves among the top half of the league.
There’s no doubt that the Broncos are set to have an incredibly arduous path to the playoffs this season.
