When they took off from the desert, the Broncos lost service, and the fate of the AFC West floated somewhere tens of thousands of feet up in the desert air.

A few hours after putting the Raiders away to put some distance between them and the rest of their divisional field, head coach Sean Payton and staff turned on the Sunday night game. These were the dying vestiges of the Kansas City Chiefs as the Broncos and the world knew them, clinging for one last breath to their hold on the AFC West against the Houston Texans. Denver hit the sky with Houston up 10-0 early, and landed with the score knotted at 10-10. Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes and company, of course, would not go away quietly.

But Payton and staff watched Mahomes throw two picks in the fourth quarter, and Houston take control in

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