Peter King snubs Broncos in 2022 playoff predictions

The AFC is a strong conference and the AFC West is an insanely strong division, so it shouldn’t surprising that the Denver Broncos will likely be the odd man out when national writers like Peter King from Pro Football Talk make their season-long predictions ahead of Week 1.

Even as a fan, I could understand the logic if it made sense, but King went right on down his list and put a 9-8 Miami Dolphins team ahead of either the Las Vegas Raiders or Denver Broncos. That made me feel like there was no way it goes down like that. Russell Wilson will lead to more than just a +2 in the win column over the 2021 Broncos.

However, of the two snubbed AFC West teams it was the Broncos that King felt the most regret not including. Maybe deep down, he knows this team will be better than 9-8.

Denver. I didn’t pick the Broncos to make the playoffs, which I’ll probably live to regret. This year’s AFC West is the toughest division I remember since the NFL went to eight four-team divisions in 2002; all four teams have at least 10 games against 2021 teams with winning records. I picked the Chargers and Kansas City to make the post-season, but nothing will shock me. As one coach told me on my camp tour: “No road team winning an AFC West game this year will be an upset.” Think of that. Best line I heard on my camp tour.

I personally like that Denver is a bit under-the-radar though. They are coming off a 7-10 season and haven’t had a winning record since Trevor Siemian’s first year as a starter in 2016. The roster is pretty damn good, though. There is no denying that and the addition of Russell Wilson should get them over the hump. The only question is by how much.

So let’s do our own predictions here. Looking over the schedule below, how many more wins will Denver get over the 7 they got in 2021? I’m going with a conservative improvement and say it will be a solid 4. I think it could be more, but 11-6 would please me very much in 2022!