The Denver Broncos defeated the Cleveland Browns in three AFC Championship Games within a four-year period (1987-1990), but few would say the Browns are a foremost rival of the Broncos.
Rivalries are defined by hatred, and if you asked any Denver resident about the five main rivals of the Broncos, it is hard to see how the list below could possibly be questioned.
5. Seattle Seahawks
The Seahawks are now in the NFC, so the fires of this rivalry don't burn as brightly as they once did. Yet, the Seahawks did beat the Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII. The next season, the two teams met in Seattle. There were a LOT of Bronco fans in the stadium despite the Seahawks' rabid fan base. The game was a ferocious battle, won by the Seahawks in overtime.
Older Broncos fans remember facing the Seahawks in the AFC Playoffs when Seattle had Hall of Fame receiver Steve Largent and played in the Kingdome. John Elway grew up as an NFL quarterback learning how to handle tough road environments, and Seattle's was as tough as it got for Denver's most iconic quarterback.
4. Los Angeles (formerly San Diego) Chargers
The Chargers aren't as fierce a rival as the teams below, but they are more of a rival than the Seahawks because they have stayed in the AFC West.
This rivalry isn't higher on the list because the great Chargers teams of the early 1980s didn't face the Broncos in many high-stakes battles. The early 1980s were one of the few times over the past 40 years when the Broncos were not especially strong.
However, in the mid-2000s and then when Peyton Manning quarterbacked the Broncos, the clash with the Chargers became spicy. Denver beat the Bolts in a 2013 divisional playoff game, en route to Super Bowl XLVIII. Two years later, in Peyton's final season, No. 18 came off the bench in Week 17 (Brock Osweiler started) to rally the Broncos past the Chargers. The win secured the No. 1 seed in the AFC for Denver, which was the main reason the Broncos were able to fend off the New England Patriots and reach Super Bowl 50. Manning won his last NFL game, his second Lombardi Trophy, and his first title with Denver, the franchise's third.
Wins over the Chargers rate as some of the biggest in Broncos history.
3. Kansas City Chiefs
The Broncos have battled the Chiefs for big prizes on several occasions. The battles between Joe Montana of the Chiefs and John Elway were rare, but special, in the early-to-mid-1990s. The teams met in the 1997 AFC Divisional Playoff Game, with the Broncos winning and eventually claiming their first Super Bowl title.
More recently, Peyton Manning and Alex Smith went at each other in Peyton's final years, before Smith moved to the Washington Redskins.
Don't forget quarterback Steve DeBerg, who played quarterback for both the Broncos and Chiefs in his lengthy NFL career. DeBerg's Kansas City years — 1988 through 1991 — provided some of the more contentious editions of this particular rivalry.
2. New England Patriots
The one team without an AFC West history on this list is the team Denver fans wanted to beat more than any other during the Peyton Manning era. Denver and New England traded AFC championships in a four-season span from 2013 (Super Bowl XLVIII) through 2016 (SB LI). Their regular-season meetings were appointment television, the kinds of games you stopped to watch.
This rivalry isn't No. 1, however, because outside of the Belichick-Manning duels and a meeting in the divisional playoff round one decade earlier (Champ Bailey picked off Tom Brady to win the game for the Broncos), these teams haven't had a long history of nasty, venom-filled battles.
The rivalry below, on the other hand…
1. Las Vegas (formerly Oakland and Los Angeles) Raiders
They met in the 1977 AFC Championship Game. They met for AFC West titles at various points in the 1980s and into the early 1990s.
Mike Shanahan coached both teams.
The Raiders and Broncos have both had periods of great prosperity, the Raiders from the late 1960s through the early 1980s, the Broncos in the late 1980s through the late 1990s, then for Peyton Manning's four seasons in the Rocky Mountains.
Raiders-Chiefs is the most ancient AFC West holy war, but among Broncos fans, the Raiders are Public Enemy No. 1. Don't expect the Raiders' move to Las Vegas to change this.
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