Broncos

Denver enters the season defending an AFC West title it had not held since 2015.

The franchise started life in 1960 as a charter member of the American Football League. Its most durable image, though, came later in that first decade under John Elway, whose arm carried Denver to three Super Bowls between 1983 and 1998 before Terrell Davis and Mike Shanahan finally turned two of those trips into rings, in the 1997 and 1998 seasons. Before Elway, there was the Orange Crush defense of the late 1970s, built under Red Miller, the unit that first made Denver a team other franchises game-planned around rather than past.

The third championship arrived differently. Super Bowl 50, at the close of the 2015 season, belonged to a defense with Von Miller tormenting Carolina's offensive line all night rather than to Peyton Manning's arm, and Miller left with the game's MVP award. Gary Kubiak coached that team; Champ Bailey and Steve Atwater had already built their Hall of Fame cases on the defensive side by then.

Three Super Bowl wins, eight AFC Championships, and now sixteen division titles sit in the Broncos' history.