During safety P.J. Locke’s four years in Denver, he has rarely been in a situation where he is playing meaningful football during the final month of the regular season.
With the Broncos sporting a 6-6 record and in the playoff hunt during the 14th week of the season, the vibes are a bit different this year.
Whether that produces a different result than the last time Locke and the Broncos were in this spot — at 6-6 under former head coach Vic Fangio in 2021 — will be determined starting with Sunday’s trip to SoFi Stadium to face the Los Angeles Chargers.
“We’ve raised the standard for ourselves and got to hold on to it,” Locke said.
Denver has injected life into its season, which looked lost back in October. Now that each game down the stretch matters, the Broncos have embraced the challenge and are hungry to make a push for the postseason.
“It means a lot. Being able to play high-level football at this time of the month is very important,” cornerback Pat Surtain II said. “We got a couple of tough games, so the main thing is winning our matchups.”
Playing football with playoff implications has been a rarity for the Broncos since Super Bowl 50. There’ve been four times when Denver had a .500 or better record through 12 games. But the Broncos fell flat each time.
Back in 2021 under Fangio, the Broncos improved to 7-6 after a commanding 38-10 win over the Detroit Lions. Then they lost the last four games to finish the season 7-10.
In 2018, the Broncos were 6-6 after winning three consecutive games under then-head coach Vance Joseph, then dropped four in a row.
The Broncos had promise in 2016 immediately after their Super Bowl season. They were 8-4 and winners of two of three, including a 25-23 victory over New Orleans, which was coached by Sean Payton at the time. But their playoff hopes evaporated when they dropped three of the last four, falling to 9-7.
“When I first got into coaching, a lot of the time teams would divide the season into quarters because it was 16 weeks. Now, it’s 17,” Payton said. “We’re in that last quarter pole, and there are a lot of teams that are kind of sitting where we are. This stretch will be important, and it’s pretty obvious.”
History isn’t on the Broncos’ side. At the same time, there’s reason for optimism even after a heartbreaking loss at Houston in Week 13.
For starters, four of Denver’s final five games are against teams with losing records. The Broncos play the Chargers (5-7) twice, starting Sunday. After they conclude their three-game road trip against the Detroit Lions (9-3) next week, the Broncos face the New England Patriots — a team that’s turned to backup Bailey Zappe to salvage its rocky quarterback situation and entered Thursday night 2-10. Denver will wrap up the season on the road against the Las Vegas Raiders (5-7), who fired head coach Josh McDaniels earlier this fall and are now led by interim Antonio Pierce.
Denver is in good health and has played solid football as of late. But more importantly, there’s a sense of belief within the roster after overcoming a 1-5 start.
“We have been 5-1 in the past six games. We can’t forget that,” quarterback Russell Wilson said. “We have five games to go, and we got a lot of confidence in this locker room and who we are.”
Locke said the Broncos’ five-game win streak proved to them that they can overcome any challenge that’s in front of them.
Throughout the streak, Locke said Payton and the coaching staff shared their stories of overcoming adversity in the NFL.
Denver has a 21% chance of making the postseason, according to the New York Times. But this Broncos team couldn’t care less about the odds.
“We’ve been through it before, and we saw that we could (handle) it,” Locke said. “This is the same situation.”