There are many questions surrounding the Denver Broncos and the upcoming 2024 season. Head coach Sean Payton, who is entering his second year in Denver, has appointed rookie quarterback Bo Nix to lead the offense. With a rookie quarterback at the helm, and with the Broncos parting ways with some big-name talent in the offseason, many NFL analysts have not been too kind with their predictions for the team this season.

The Broncos do have at least one analyst who believes in them, though. In a segment predicting the AFC’s playoff teams for the 2024 season, NFL Network’s Peter Schrager confidently proclaimed that the Broncos will be the sixth seed.

“Rookie Bo Nix, the sixth quarterback (taken overall.) No Justin Simmons. No Tim Patrick. It’s Sean Payton I trust,” said Schrager. “He’s had a full year to get his cards in order and put his guys in places that he wants to succeed. I have seen this guy do it with a lot less in New Orleans. I’ve got the Denver Broncos making the playoffs.”

Schrager does have an impressive track record when it comes to predicting, as he has correctly predicted the last five Super Bowl winners.

On top of the Broncos, he predicts two other AFC West teams will earn playoff spots. He predicts the Kansas City Chiefs will snag the second seed, and the Los Angeles Chargers will sneak in right behind the Broncos with the seventh seed.

Can the Denver Broncos snap their playoff cold streak in 2024?

The last time the Broncos were in the playoffs in 2015, they won Super Bowl 50. Even just thinking about Super Bowl 50 feels like forever ago, and in football years, it somewhat is.

To Broncos fans, having a team not even sniff the playoffs in almost 10 years has become quite an annoyance. Enduring a carousel of quarterbacks, wallowing in the basement of the AFC West, shuffling through head coaches like a deck of cards. These things begin to wear fans down over time.

The Broncos are a storied NFL franchise. Their history is chock full of Super Bowls, Hall of Famers, record-breaking offenses and defenses, and winning seasons. In terms of winning seasons, the Broncos are 13th in the NFL with a franchise win-loss record of 508-465. But since 2015, the Broncos have put up a woeful 52-79 record.

So for Broncos fans to see such a once-dominant team struggle for this long, it hurts.

In the 2024 preseason, fans saw a very tiny glimmer of hope. Even with it being a very small sample size, the rookie quarterback Nix showed flashes of promise. Should Nix continue to build on this promise, and even start winning games, Broncos fans will undoubtedly see their optimism grow.

Perhaps Nix is finally the Broncos’ answer at quarterback. Perhaps Nix is finally the franchise quarterback the Broncos have been so desperately trying to find all these years. If the Broncos manage to get into the playoffs just like Schrager predicted, perhaps it is the beginning of a brighter future for the franchise.