The Denver Broncos get an opportunity to send the Oakland Raiders off to their new home in Las Vegas without a stopover in the playoffs when the longtime rivals meet in the regular-season finale Sunday afternoon in Colorado.
Thanks to a 24-17 win over the Los Angeles Chargers last week and an improbable four-result parlay that might have broken some small-casino banks, the Raiders (7-8) not only remain alive in the AFC playoff chase but give their fans reason to do some serious scoreboard-watching Sunday, when all four games that could impact the conference’s sixth seed will kick off simultaneously.
In order to earn a trip to either New England, Kansas City or Houston next week for their first playoff game since 2016, the Raiders would need to win at Denver while Tennessee (8-7) loses at Houston, Pittsburgh (8-7) loses at Baltimore and Indianapolis (7-8) wins at Jacksonville.
As Oakland coach Jon Gruden has reiterated to his club numerous times this week, nothing matters for the Raiders if they can’t go into Denver and win for the first time since December 2015.
“You can’t control what’s going on,” Gruden reminded reporters earlier this week. “We’ve just got a lot of young players playing, we’ve been saying that from the beginning. We’re going to try and use this as an opportunity to … hopefully continue to develop our roster and our team and try to win games. And if we get some help, that would be great. That would be awesome.”
In a playoff-less season, the finale is meaningful for the Broncos (6-9) for several reasons.
First off, their draft position — currently No. 11 — could go up or down as many as six spots depending upon the Week 17 results.
And then there’s the pride factor.
The last two times the Broncos have faced the Raiders — both on the road — they became victims of wild celebrations, first when Oakland fans thought they were witnessing their team’s final home game last December (turned out the new Las Vegas stadium wasn’t quite ready yet), then when a chaotic preseason dominated by Antonio Brown and Hard Knocks led into a festive Monday night opener.
The Raiders won both those games rather easily — 27-14 last season and 24-16 in Week 1.
When the clubs last met in Denver, the Raiders almost won that one, too. But Case Keenum rallied the Broncos from a 19-7, third-quarter deficit and Brandon McManus kicked a game-winning field goal with six seconds remaining in a 20-19 triumph last season in Week 2.
The Broncos had Joe Flacco at the helm in this year’s opener at Oakland, but this time will send Drew Lock against a Raiders defense that shut down the Chargers’ running game (16 carries for 19 yards) last week.
Lock has been more game manager than overpowering force in leading wins in each of his two home starts, throwing for a total of just 326 yards in those contests. Led by Phillip Lindsay (19 carries for 109 yards), the Broncos ran up 150 rushing yards in last week’s 27-17 home win over Detroit.
Lindsay would love to duplicate the effort Sunday
“We lost to them when we went there,” he noted to reporters this week. “Now it’s time for them to come to us. If they think they’re going to come in here and try to clinch the playoffs, they’ve got something coming.”
The Raiders had hoped to counter Lindsay with standout rookie Josh Jacobs, who rushed for two touchdowns in his NFL debut against the Broncos back in September. But Jacobs missed the Chargers game last week with a shoulder injury and was ruled out for the team’s must-win finale on Saturday.
