The Broncos are beginning a two-game road trip soon, and I expressed particular worry about the second of these games at Tampa due to the horrendous record the team has in the state of Florida. That got me to thinking: what records do the Broncos have if you group all their games by state?
The table below lists those results, current as of today. Super Bowls and overseas games are excluded. The current names of teams are used within the table.
| W | L | T | Pct | Teams | |
| LA | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0.750 | Saints |
| AZ | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0.750 | Cardinals |
| OH | 18 | 9 | 0 | 0.667 | Bengals, Browns |
| TN | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0.667 | Titans |
| CO | 292 | 152 | 7 | 0.655 | Broncos |
| MI | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0.571 | Lions |
| GA | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0.571 | Falcons |
| NJ | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0.500 | Jets, Giants |
| NC | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0.500 | Panthers |
| WA | 13 | 15 | 0 | 0.464 | Seahawks |
| NY | 15 | 18 | 1 | 0.456 | Bills, Jets, Giants |
| CA | 54 | 68 | 0 | 0.443 | 49ers, Rams, Chargers, Raiders |
| MA | 9 | 12 | 0 | 0.429 | Patriots |
| IL | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0.429 | Bears |
| MN | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0.429 | Vikings |
| PA | 8 | 11 | 0 | 0.421 | Steelers, Eagles |
| MD | 4 | 7 | 0 | 0.364 | Ravens, Redskins, Colts |
| MO | 20 | 36 | 1 | 0.360 | Chiefs, Cardinals, Rams |
| DC | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0.333 | Redskins |
| TX | 8 | 20 | 0 | 0.286 | Cowboys, Texans, Titans, Chiefs |
| IN | 3 | 8 | 0 | 0.273 | Colts |
| FL | 4 | 11 | 0 | 0.267 | Dolphins, Bucs, Jaguars |
| WI | 0 | 5 | 1 | 0.083 | Packers |
A few takeaways:
- Since the Bengals are the first and upcoming road opponent, let’s start with Ohio. The Broncos actually have an even 7-7 record in Cincinnati. Thus (as you’d imagine), the Broncos’ good record in Ohio can be attributed to their utter dominance of the Browns–11-2 in Cleveland.
- Pennsylvania has another similar odd split: the Broncos, amazingly, are 7-6 in Pittsburgh, but that gets balanced out by a pathetic 1-5 record in Philadelphia.
- Why is their record in Texas so terrible? You can’t blame the Cowboys, of who the Broncos are 3-2 against in Dallas. Instead, you have to blame two teams who are no longer in the state. The Broncos lost all three of their road games against the Dallas Texans before they moved to Kansas City and became the Chiefs. Even worse was that in ten tries in the AFL, the Broncos could only beat the Houston Oilers once, in 1965. (If you limit records to post-merger, it thus gets much better for the Broncos, as usual, evening their Texas record to 8-8.)
- Finally, and in a fact I didn’t know but should have, the Broncos have never defeated the Packers at either Lambeau Field or in Milwaukee. That will need to change come 2019. The good news is that this is balanced by the Broncos holding a 6-1 record against the Packers in Denver. (Damn you, Brett Favre, for removing that bagel in the loss column and breaking everyone’s hearts in doing so.)