The Denver Broncos are set to travel 19,670 miles this fall as they play eight games at home and nine games on the road in the 2024 NFL season.
Earlier this year, Broncos coach Sean Payton hinted that the team might stay on the East Coast after facing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 3 leading up to a Week 4 showdown with the New York Jets.
Denver has not yet announced its travel plans for Weeks 3-4, but Payton has been speaking with coaches who have faced similar schedules.
“We play a number of East Coast games this year,” Payton said this spring after the team’s schedule was released. “[I’ve] talked to a few coaches relative to who’s had success going east for the early game. In the last eight years, really Seattle has been one of those teams. I had a chance to visit with Pete [Carroll], had a chance to visit with [Kyle] Shanahan and Sean [McVay]. Who are the notable teams that have done well? It’s kind of funny, they’re good teams. So you’re always looking for like, ‘What’s that edge?’”
NFL teams will do everything they can to gain an edge, but at the end of the day, the better team often wins regardless of factors like travel and weather.
“I can recall there were a lot of demons [the Saints] had to overcome in New Orleans because we had never won on the road in cold weather when it was below 40 degrees,” Payton said. “There were a lot of these ‘nevers.’ Once the teams got good enough, then you began to exercise and get rid of some of those things.”
After going 8-9 in his first season with the Broncos and adjusting to a new time zone in 2023, Payton will hope his club is good enough to overcome any travel scenario in Year 2.
