Broncos coach Sean Payton has been realistic about the potential for regression in his team’s close-game form. That’s a significant part of why the team traded for wide receiver Jaylen Waddle in March. Even though the Broncos re-signed plenty of players, running it back entirely with the same team would have meant a likely retreat in the standings, and he knows that.
So, when he appeared on a podcast with former ESPN host Trey Wingo, he dove into his rationale — specifically given that the Broncos won 12 one-score games last year — including postseason — to tie a league single-season record established by the Kansas City Chiefs one year earlier.
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“We did 20-year study of teams that had won — I think — 10 or more one-score games and that were playoff teams,” Payton said. “And so, it spits out the data. Here are the 10 examples or 11 over the last 20 years and then what was their next season? And was it a playoff season or not? And it was like a 35 percent hit rate.”
A further dive into the data reveals:
Since the year 2000, 20 teams prior to the 2025 Broncos won at least nine one-score games (including postseason). Of those, 10 missed the postseason and 13 saw their win totals drop. Those 20 teams saw their win tally fall by 2.7 games the following season.
Of the eight teams in that span who had at least 10 one-score wins in a season, five missed the postseason — a 50-pecent clip. On average, those teams saw their win total drop by 3.25 games. In the last 20 years, four of those six teams missed the postseason; in all, those six teams fell by an average of 3.67 wins the following season.
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Thus, an average regression — depending on your sample size — would see the Broncos win 10 or 11 games in 2026.
But there could be a key to avoiding it: Staying out of the close games in the first place.
A BRONCOS GOAL: WIN MORE DECISIVELY
“I don’t think you’re looking at, ‘All right, how do we still win the one-score games?’ How do we how do we get in games where it’s not one score?” Payton told Wingo.
“Like, where’s the low-hanging fruit if you’re really being critical of areas we need to improve an — whether it’s the two-minute, it’s the the takeaway margin offensively, our run game consistency, especially in the last half of the season.”
“There’s a there’s a handful of these other things that we have to look at, and just recognize [that] nothing’s promised. There isn’t [a scenario where] we just pick up where we left off.”
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That’s a point that Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph has made to his side of the ball, too.
“So, I think it’s easier to look at a team that’s just won 14, 15 games and say, ‘Look, I’m going to be honest with you, we’re behind in these areas,’ than it is taking a team that’s just won eight and saying, ‘Look, you did this well,” Payton said.
“And so, having done this long enough, there is that appreciation where like, ‘Look, this is just what I see and and rhese are areas that we’re going to have to improve on or we’re going to end up in this clump of teams that the following year didn’t play as well.
“And so we we actually have have shown that statistic, talked about it, and then here are the examples over 20 years, and let’s make sure we we fall on the right side of history.”
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The three teams with double-digit one-score wins this century that made the postseason were the 2003-04 New England Patriots, the 2019-20 Seattle Seahawks and the 2022-23 Kansas City Chiefs. All three had perennial Pro Bowlers at quarterback playing at a high level at the time: Tom Brady, Russell Wilson and Patrick Mahomes, respectively.
A top-shelf QB is generally the roster attribute that facilitates consistent contention. The Patriots missed the playoffs just once in any of Brady’s 19 seasons when he started more than one game. Kansas City went to the postseason in each of Mahomes’ seasons until last year, when he suffered a torn ACL in December. And the Seahawks never had a losing season in a campaign when Russell Wilson started all of the team’s games.
So, as with many things, the Broncos’ key could rest in Bo Nix’s hands.