Oddsmakers Reveal Why Broncos Are a Team to 'Buy' in 2025

Are the Denver Broncos a smart bet in 2025?

Nov 10, 2024; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix (10) talks with head coach Sean Payton against the Kansas City Chiefs prior to a game at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. / Denny Medley-Imagn Images

The Denver Broncos' turnaround over the last two seasons deserves to be studied.

After being left for dead at the beginning of last season as one of the teams with an abhorrent Vegas over/under line at just 5.5 wins and some of the highest odds to pick first overall in the 2025 NFL draft, Broncos fans that trusted Sean Payton and Bo Nix were rewarded in their faith as Denver reached the playoffs for the first time in nearly a decade.

Was 2024 just a blip, and the Broncos are set to regress back to being on the outside of the playoffs looking in? Or was 2024 a springboard for better years to come and a new era in Broncos Country, taking on the formidable and seemingly perennial AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs in the division?

According to BetMGM's Nick Hennion, not only are the Broncos a team that should once again be a true playoff contender in 2025, but there is a chance they do even better than last season and by a good margin.

"Think of the Broncos as a miniature Philadelphia Eagles. While Denver lacks Philadelphia’s weapons at the skill positions, they’ve built success from the trenches. The Broncos led the NFL in both pass-block win rate and run-block win rate last year, per ESPN Analytics," Hennion wrote. "They simultaneously ranked second and eighth, respectively, in the corresponding defensive metrics. Denver succeeded last year on the heels of their defense, which finished fourth in defensive DVOA. They’ve strengthened this offseason by adding Cody Barton, Talanoa Hufanga and Dre Greenlaw. On offense, they sneakily added Evan Engram at tight end. That gives Bo Nix another weapon as he tries to produce a strong sophomore campaign."

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The Broncos appear to be a team on the rise. After vastly outperforming expectations last season, this iteration of the roster is now being touted as a dark-horse contender in the NFL.

Built on the backbone of excellent play along the lines of scrimmage, along with excellent coaching and the Defensive Player of the Year in Patrick Surtain II, there are ample reasons to be excited for the Broncos to become true contenders in 2025 and beyond.

In the article, Hennion does an excellent job pointing out the Broncos’ flukey results in one-score games last season, a statistic that tends to be volatile overall and should fall more to a .500 record in such contests, compared to the 2024 team that finished 1-6 in those scenarios.

On the other hand, it wouldn’t be shocking to expect some regression from the Chiefs, who finished an absurd 11-0 in one-score games. The Broncos will have to prove they can win close games, but statistically speaking, another year of results in close contests is unlikely.

The two concerning pitfalls for the Broncos being a team that could potentially knock off the Chiefs in the AFC West or attain even higher accolades will likely be whether they can replicate the previous two seasons’ rate of avoiding injury and quarterback Bo Nix's growth (or regression).

Prior to Payton coming to Denver, the Broncos had been a team perennially in the upper quadrant of injuries suffered and games lost to starters seemingly every season. However, in the last two seasons, that trend has shifted, with the Broncos quickly becoming one of the least-injured teams in football. Payton credits the team’s Vice President of Player Health and Performance Beau Lowery and his staff for turning things around on that front in Denver.

At the annual NFL owners meeting, Payton tipped his cap to the Broncos’ training staff for helping the team to avoid injury, crediting them with why players want to stay in Denver and train at the team facilities over the offseason.

“I think players generally want to train at altitude and at our facilities," Payton said on March 31. "Once they’ve had two years of it now and to see where we’re at relative to health and safety, injury data, we were first in the league again. It’s easy to say ‘We’re on the right path.’”

It's likely still too small of a sample size to say resoundingly that the Broncos have found the magic formula to prevent injury and always finish as one of the least-injured teams, but it's something worth monitoring going forward. A statistical regression could certainly hamper the Broncos’ aspirations this season.

It's also possible that Nix could hit a dreaded “sophomore slump.” Similarly to how CJ Stroud was going to be in the MVP conversation and one of the top 10 quarterbacks in the NFL prior to last season, with the Texans set to take on the AFC by storm, he and the entirety of Houston's offense regressed and floundered through much of last season led by their defense in a terrible AFC South.

Could Nix suffer a similar slide-back season to Stroud? Fortunately, Nix has quite a few things going for him that Stroud did not.

The Broncos have crafted one of the singularly best pass-blocking offensive lines in football to support their young quarterback. Nix will undoubtedly have to improve his play under pressure in 2025. He was one of the least-pressured quarterbacks pre-dropback last season, but his passing data per pressured dropback was some of the worst of any quarterback in the entire league.

Furthermore, outside of having a night-and-day difference at offensive line between Nix and Stroud, the Broncos also have Payton, who should help protect Nix from any sort of massive regression. The Texans’ offense simply did not have answers last season, which led to the firing of then-offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik. There should be zero worries about Payton putting Nix in unfavorable situations at the same rate that Stroud faced last season.

With the offensive line and Payton, and likely some additional weaponry on top of Evan Engram signed in free agency, all supporting factors point toward Nix avoiding a sophomore slump in 2025. Rather, the question will be just how much Nix can grow and what his ceiling truly looks like.

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Answering that question, on top of the Broncos staying healthy, will do a majority of the heavy lifting in determining just how viable they can be as a contender in the AFC West next season and whether Denver can truly contend for the conference and Super Bowl in 2025.

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