NFL Week 16 Power Rankings
Winning streaks and Peyton Manning have gone together for years and years in the NFL, but even Nate Silver couldn't have predicted how well things would go for No. 18 in Denver this season. With a visit from last-place Kansas City this week, the Broncos can win their 11th game in a row and maybe even snatch away the AFC's No. 1 playoff seed that looked to be in Houston's pocket for most of the past two months.
The Broncos haven't lost since the first weekend in October, and the only three teams to beat them -- the Falcons, Texans and Patriots -- take a combined record of 36-9 into Week 17 and will all be playing in January. It's a remarkable run Manning and Co. are on, made all the more memorable by his absence from the stage in 2011. Calling it a comeback doesn't even quite do it justice.
If Peyton and the Broncos make it all the way to New Orleans, a Manning in the Super Bowl will have become an almost annual event. He went with the 2006 and 2009 Colts, and Eli Manning was there in 2007 and 2011 with the Giants. It'd be five times in seven seasons for the Manning clan if Peyton takes his new team to the Super Bowl.
We're not quite there yet, but the start of the playoffs is just a handful of days away. Now onto our final rankings of the regular season...
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MORE:PLAYOFF SPOTS ON THE LINE IN WEEK 17 |
