The Denver Broncos are moving on to the AFC Championship Game after a dramatic overtime win over the Buffalo Bills-but the celebration in the Mile High City comes with a gut punch.
Quarterback Bo Nix, the rookie who helped guide Denver through a resurgent season, suffered a broken ankle in the final moments of Saturday’s thriller. His postseason is over. And with it, Denver’s Super Bowl hopes may have taken a serious hit.
Right after the win, the Broncos were sitting at +400 to win the franchise’s fourth Lombardi Trophy-roughly a 20% implied chance. But once word broke about Nix’s injury, those odds took a nosedive, falling to +1200 (7.7% implied probability).
That’s a massive swing, especially with just four teams left in the hunt. But it’s not hard to see why the market reacted that way: Jarrett Stidham is now QB1 for the biggest game of the season.
Let’s break that down.
The Broncos are set to host the AFC title game against the New England Patriots, but they’re entering as 5.5-point underdogs on their own turf. On the moneyline, Denver sits at +210-translating to about a 32.3% chance of pulling off the upset.
That’s a steep climb, and a lot of it comes down to the man now under center. Stidham has been in the league for six years but has just four career starts to his name.
He’s 1-3 in those games, with the lone win coming last season when he led the Broncos to a 16-9 victory over the Chargers in Week 17. He’s seen action in 20 games total, but his career numbers-59.4% completion rate and a passer rating of 78.3-don’t exactly scream “playoff-ready.”
This is where the Patriots come into the picture. With Nix out, New England’s path to the Super Bowl suddenly looks a whole lot clearer.
What was shaping up to be a tight matchup has tilted heavily in their favor. Second-year quarterback Drake Maye now finds himself one win away from the biggest stage in football.
The Pats may not be favored in a potential Super Bowl matchup, but among the final four teams, they arguably have the smoothest road to get there.
Over in the NFC, the Seahawks are still sitting atop the Super Bowl odds board-and it’s easy to see why. They just steamrolled the 49ers and now get another NFC West showdown, this time against the Rams.
These two teams split their regular-season series, and both games were decided by a combined total of just three points. Seattle enters the NFC Championship as a 2.5-point favorite, with the home crowd at Lumen Field ready to turn up the noise.
So, what we’re looking at now is a postseason landscape that’s been dramatically reshaped by one injury. Bo Nix’s breakout season ends on the sideline, and the Broncos are left hoping that Stidham can step into the spotlight and deliver. Meanwhile, the Patriots have gone from underdogs to front-runners in the AFC, and the Seahawks are trying to finish what they started with a trip to the big game.
There’s still football to be played, but make no mistake: the margins just got a whole lot tighter, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.