Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

The 1981 Broncos are the only team since the merger to go 8-0 at home and miss the playoffs.

On the last day of the season, they had a chance to clinch the AFC West, but couldn't at Chicago.

I don't know how the tiebreakers happened with the Jets, but had they won the West, SD misses the playoffs.

There would have been no Epic in Miami.

Conversely, how would a Dolphins/Broncos playoff game have gone down in that Orange Bowl humidity and would either of them have fared any better in the Freezer Bowl (assuming Buffalo doesn't win that game)

CSKreager wrote:The 1981 Broncos are the only team since the merger to go 8-0 at home and miss the playoffs.

On the last day of the season, they had a chance to clinch the AFC West, but couldn't at Chicago.

I don't know how the tiebreakers happened with the Jets, but had they won the West, SD misses the playoffs.

I guess this presupposes that the Broncos would have beaten Chicago and finished 11-5, and the Chargers and Bills would have finished 10-6 anyway. The Jets would have made it anyway, because they finished 10-5-1 that year. As you note, San Diego would have missed the playoffs under that scenario, and there wouldn't have been that 41-38 thriller in Miami. In a tiebreaker between the 10-6 Chargers and Bills, the Bills would have gotten the spot because of their one point win in San Diego late in the season.

Denver definitely wouldn't have fared as well @ Miami. Which would have sent Miami to Cincinnati for the AFCC freezer bowl, with probably a similar result as the actual game vs. SD.