There are plenty of story lines for Saturday’s AFC playoff game between the Denver Broncos and the Buffalo Bills. Revenge for the Predominantly Orange, who were embarrassed in a wild card game between these same two teams last season. Josh Allen, in the same town as his boyhood hero, John Elway, the former Broncos star-turned-general manager that famously passed on him in the 2018 NFL draft – and who has now admitted that he blew the pick. Then there’s Allen’s return to the state where his college arch-rival is located…and Allen has made no secret of his disdain for the Rams of Colorado State.
History won’t play any part in what happens Saturday, unless the football gods decide to intervene?
As we’ve noted before, Sean Payton’s Broncos are ahead of schedule. This year, we were supposed to see an improvement, once again a playoff team in 2025… but not necessarily a division winner or Super Bowl contender. Not yet. But that’s where they are, suddenly, after a season of narrow wins and clutch late-game performances – the top seed in the AFC.
But is it their turn already?
The Bills, meanwhile, are that team haven’t been able to quite get over the hump. The 2025 version isn’t their best team during Allen’s tenure, but because of things outside of their control, this may be the team with the best shot at finally winning the big one. In these playoffs, there’s no Patrick Mahomes. No Joe Burrow. No Lamar Jackson. Only Bo Nix and some second-tier signal-callers standing in their way.
Broncos Country can relate. After losing three painful Super Bowls in the back half of the 1980’s, Denver finally broke through and won the Super Bowl in 1997 in a year when they weren’t supposed to.
The football gods had decided it was Denver’s turn.
More recently, the 2012 Broncos, winners of the AFC West, authors of an 11-game winning streak, were supposed to win the big one for the comeback kid, new QB Peyton Manning. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Super Bowl. An arctic cold front dropped down on the city, and then Joe Flacco threw a bomb in overtime – and just like that, no Super Bowl.
The following season, with Manning hitting his stride, they once again rolled through the AFC in the regular season, showing themselves to be the best team in the NFL once again. This time, they got to the Super Bowl, but instead earning a crowning achievement, the best team in the league got humbled by Seattle.
It still wasn’t Denver’s turn.
It wasn’t the next year, either, when they got whipped by Indianapolis in the first round and head coach John Fox got fired.
Finally, in 2015, things changed. With new coach Gary Kubiak at the helm, the Broncos and Manning got off to another great start, winning their first seven games before hitting a wall. Manning was playing injured, and eventually had to be benched. The Broncos went 5-4 down the stretch and held on to win the division, but looked like anything but a Super Bowl team. They struggled past Pittsburgh in the first playoff game before holding off Tom Brady and New England to win the AFC title. The defense was phenomenal, but the offense? This wasn’t the best one Manning ever played on.
The Carolina Panthers and MVP Cam Newton were supposed to drill Denver in Super Bowl 50.
But it was Denver’s turn again, and we ended up getting a nice parade.
Which brings us to now, a full decade later. After one playoff season a year ago, is it really Denver’s turn again?
Or maybe, after six consecutive playoff appearances, including three near-misses in AFC title games against Kansas City, is it finally Buffalo’s turn?
The football gods don’t care about stats, or potential or anything else. They care that you’re doing it right, and that you’re paying your dues. Denver is doing it right, overcoming the Russell Wilson contract and almost a decade of mismanagement. But they’re fresh into the contender’s circle, while Buffalo’s been living in there for quite a while now.
All of which points to this: On Saturday – and maybe for the rest of the NFL playoffs, too – it’s finally got to be Buffalo’s turn.
