Strength of Schedule


We are a few months from the real beginning of Denver's grand Peyton Manning experiment, but the hype, the excitement, and the fretting has already begun. That's because the NFL finally unveiled the 2012 schedule on Tuesday.

Last year the Broncos opened the season to little fanfare. Outside of opening night on Monday Night Football, there weren't a lot of nationally televised games... that is until Tim Tebow and the team caught fire at the end of the season. Then the Broncos were everywhere.

My, how times have changed. Winning the West guaranteed the Broncos a tougher schedule, but who knew the NFL would front load the challenges this way. The Broncos will be in prime time four times in the first eight weeks, facing five teams that were in the 2011-12 playoffs and a schedule that features each team in the first eight weeks having finished .500 or better in 2011. Yikes. No time to ease into it Peyton.

The Broncos open on Sunday night against the Pittsburgh Steelers, head to Atlanta to battle the Falcons on Monday night, return home to battle the Houston Texans and Oakland Raiders in consecutive weeks, then travel to face Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. Then it's on to San Diego for another Monday night tussle, a bye week, and home for the New Orleans Saints on Sunday Night Football. That is a rough stretch to start the season, and those first eight weeks will tell us a lot about the healing of Manning, the development of this young offense, and the improvement of our defense.

That's followed by a stretch of three road games in four weeks in November — at Cincinnatti, at Carolina, home for San Diego, and at Kansas City. Then home for the Buccaneers, at the Raiders, at the Baltimore Ravens, and home to close out against the Cleveland Browns and Kansas City Chiefs.

For those thinking Denver has a good shot to win the West and get to the Super Bowl, that seems like a tough road. By the end of the first half of the season, we will know a lot more about whether John Elway's Manning gamble paid off.

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