NFL Denver Broncos

Can Denver Broncos Make Super Bowl Without Home-Field Advantage?

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The Denver Broncos are in trouble.

The Broncos might be sitting at 7-3 and in first place in their division (although barely over the Kansas City Chiefs) — in fact, the Broncos would be sitting pretty with a first round bye if the playoffs started today — but in the Mile High City, that isn’t good enough.

Simply put, the Broncos need to win out if they are going to make it to the Super Bowl. The New England Patriots sit at 8-2 and have the critical tiebreaker with Denver after beating them decisively in Week 9. New England essence sits with a two-game lead over Denver with only six games to play.

The Broncos sit with a 2-3 record on the road, and those two victories have come against the hapless Oakland Raiders and New York Jets. More importantly, Peyton Manning’s career record in Foxboro is not good. Manning sits with a career 2-11 record in Tom Brady’s house. Simply put, if the Broncos don’t host the Patriots in the playoffs, they will not beat them.

Even winning out gives Denver no guarantees. The Patriots have a difficult game in Week 13 against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field, but if New England loses that game, the Patriots still need to stumble in one other game to fall to 12-4. Only at that point could Denver retake the No. 1 seed if they win out.

There are no guarantees, but the chances that the Patriots fall to 11-5 are minimal. If the Patriots go 12-4, that means one more loss by Denver is going to be devastating for the Broncos’ Super Bowl chances.

Sunday’s loss to the St. Louis Rams was crippling to the Broncos. The Patriots are playing at a level above every other team in the AFC and there is little to no chance that the Broncos can go into New England in January and beat Brady and Bill Belichick.

The Broncos have dug themselves a hole. They are going to have to overcome the injury bug that is currently facing the team, and more importantly, Manning is going to have to figure out what is plaguing his game (he’s thrown six interceptions in the last three contests) and get himself and his team back on track.

It doesn’t take a football genius to know that the Broncos are in a win-now situation. Manning is 38 years old, and the Broncos’ window is probably only one, maybe two more seasons after this one to make a run at a Super Bowl championship.

John Elway didn’t bring Manning to Denver to win a couple AFC West division title; the plan was to win a Super Bowl, and if the Broncos don’t win every game on their schedule moving forward, Manning and the Broncos will have failed in their ultimate goal for three consecutive seasons.

Bill Zimmerman is an NFL writer for www.RantSports.Com. Follow him on Twitter, like him on Facebook, or add him to your network on Google.

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