ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — How many wins will it take for the Broncos to be a playoff team?
There are no previous 17-game seasons to go by to make a firm percentage determination. But given that 10 AFC teams have precisely four or five losses and half of the conference sits within a game of each other at 6-4, 5-4-1 and 5-5, the chances appear great that 10-7 will be enough to ensure postseason qualification in the seven-team AFC field.
When asked Wednesday how many games the Broncos needed to win the rest of the season, quarterback Teddy Bridgewater quickly replied, “All of ‘em.”
But while that should always be the goal, the current cluster of AFC teams ensures that a 5-2 record the rest of the season should be good enough to send the Broncos to the playoffs for the first time since Super Bowl 50.
But they can’t get to even 5-2 without improving their form at home.
With four home games remaining, Denver is enduring the worst two-year home stretch since the Lou Saban. The Broncos’ 4-9 home record over the last two years standing as the team’s worst home winning percentage in a two-year span since the Broncos went 4-10 at Mile High Stadium in the 1967 and 1968 seasons.
They have more double-digit losses at home — seven of ‘em — in the last two seasons than any two-season span in team history. Over the last three seasons, they have eight double-digit home defeats, the most in a three-year period since 1967-69, which also encompasses the the afore-mentioned Saban era.
It’s been a cold slap in the face for a club used to dominating at home and having that form propel it to greater heights. It isn’t a coincidence that the Broncos have never made the playoffs in a year in which they didn’t have a winning record at home; they’re 0-for-27 in making the postseason when they were .500 or worse.
Historically, the Broncos have a home-field advantage that is second to (almost) none.
In the Super Bowl era, the Broncos’ .659 home winning percentages is the NFL’s fourth-best, behind only the Baltimore Ravens, Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys. But when measuring the difference between winning percentage at home and on the road, only the Ravens have a greater historical difference between their form.
Since 1966, the Broncos are 21.3 percentage points better in Denver than on the road. They win 65.9 percent of their home games and 44.6 percent of their tilts on the road.
Under Vic Fangio, they are 9-12 in Denver, including 2-3 this year.
That said, the Broncos’ recent decline parallels a recent trend of home-field advantage waning.
This year, home teams have won just 48.8 percent of the time — which is an even lower figure than the 49.8-percent figure of last year, when games were played in front of empty or limited-capacity venues. No NFL game last year took place in front of more than 31,700 onlookers, and 14 teams played in front of no home fans at all in the regular season.
Until the last two years, home teams had not collectively finished below .500 since playing .470 ball in 1968, two years before the AFL-NFL merger was completed. But in that tumultuous year, the home form was an aberration; it came between seasons in which home teams had winning percentages of .540 (1967) and .604 (1969).
Broncos coach Vic Fangio noted the “parity” of this season when asked about the lack of success home teams have had. But it’s not just a one-season thing or even a two-season aberration; indeed, three of the five worst league-wide home records in the Super Bowl era have come in the last three seasons.
And for the Broncos, the loss of any edge at Mile High is particularly acute. That is because of the leading role that “Mile High Magic” has played in Broncos history as a blanket term describing the inexplicable turns of fortune that have led to improbable victories.
A blocked field goal returned for a touchdown in overtime — that came a moment after another blocked field goal had been negated by a penalty – as the Broncos had against the Chargers in 1985? That’s “Mile High Magic.” So is a bad snap on a potential game-tying PAT in the final moments, which the Bengals experienced on Christmas Eve 2006. Or, five years later, you can throw “Mile High Magic” as a descriptor on any one of the three Tim Tebow-galvanized wins over the Jets, Bears and Steelers.
Even in 2019, when the 7-9 Broncos were a more-than-respectable 5-3 at home, a late-season surge began when Courtland Sutton drew a pass-interference penalty on a last-minute heave from Drew Lock, setting up a game-sealing Brandon McManus field goal.
But the Broncos don’t need miraculous moments to improve.
They just need to play better fundamental football.
“Yeah, we’ve definitely got to be better at home,” Bridgewater said. “It’s just execution. Execution and energy. At home, man, we’ve shot ourselves in the foot. We’ve turned the ball over, had penalties, negative plays. Eliminate those things, man, and you eliminate the chances of you losing the game.”
And that could be the first step back to Mile High Magic: to find a bit of Mile High Efficiency.
