These are no longer the days of whine and turned-up noses.
The Broncos perch atop the AFC West with a 9-2 record. The No. 1 postseason seed, while complicated by a schedule tougher than New England’s, remains in reach. Everything Broncos Country wanted has returned.
Well, not everything. There is the issue of the red dot on the cashmere sweater.
Are Bo Nix and Sean Payton back in sync?
Until we know this, we can’t possibly answer the biggest question remaining about the Broncos’ season: Is this a Super Bowl team?
Denver is now legitimate. The walk-off victory over the Chiefs turned players into a locker room full of Toby Keiths.
“How do you like me now?”
The Broncos regained national media darling status during the bye week. Concerns, though, about the offense linger. Nix outplayed Patrick Mahomes again, but did it really look that different?
Statistically, no? Aesthetically? Yes.
The secret sauce that needs to bind Nix and Payton together is not what you think.
It is not just tempo. It is pace.
When the Broncos were tied at 6-all at halftime, they had five first downs. Nix was 10 for 15 for 80 yards. And Jaleel McLaughlin led the running backs with 7 yards on the ground.
Yeah, that is not going to win at Indianapolis or New England in January.
What unfolded in the second half will. The biggest change came in the operation.
The disconnect between Nix and Payton, first surfacing in news conference answers for a few weeks, became obvious during the first half. Nix pointed to the sidelines, furiously signaling for Payton to hurry up with the play call. CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson added after a failed drive, “The offensive line came off and said, ‘We need to change the tempo.’”
In the first drive of the third quarter, Nix and Payton finally found their sweet spot. Nix hit Troy Franklin for an 8-yard out, then R.J. Harvey collected a first down with a short gain.
This is when it happened, an organic solution.
Over the next nine plays, the Broncos went no-huddle five times. And it was sandwiched between shotgun formations twice. The Broncos scored a touchdown. Nix went 3 for 4 for 49 yards. The success was not in the numbers, but on the play clock.
Nix was getting to the line of scrimmage sooner with around 13 seconds to snap. Given time to take stock of the defense and get players in motion without screaming, Nix became comfortable. It was one drive. A high-distortion sample size.
But there is no denying that the outcome was directly linked to a smoother operation.
The idle week provides time to look back and map out the future. Payton must bend the offense around Nix’s strengths. And Nix must still do things Payton wants to keep.
It is a delicate balance, one that will determine the season’s success.
The Broncos face a new reality without running back J.K. Dobbins. He was the offense’s best player, and is sidelined until the Super Bowl, and even that is ambitious given his foot injury. It’s hard to imagine the Broncos playing in February without a solid running game. But what happened against the Chiefs was so encouraging that it left the quarterback and the coach in concert.
Clearly, Nix is best when the Broncos hurry up. He likes it when the defense becomes reactive, less aggressive, and unable to counter personnel groups. Quite obviously, Payton knows the Broncos are best when eating clock and staying balanced with time of possession to prevent undermining the team’s best asset: a historically great defense.
Remember, Payton’s 2008 Saints led the league in scoring and missed the playoffs.
Teams don’t hold reunions over statistics. They hold them because of championships.
The QB-coach disconnect began developing during the Eagles game, starting a pattern of three-quarter droughts and fourth-quarter magic. For those of us of a certain age, it conjured memories of the Dan Reeves-John Elway fit.
The Broncos’ offensive inconsistency became impossible to miss over the next six weeks. Nix completed 57.7% of his passes, and the struggles were laid bare on a forgettable Thursday night against the Raiders.
As much as Payton bristles about media storylines and huffs about tempo questions, the Broncos went 25 minutes without a first down against Las Vegas.
Nix was frenetic in a clean pocket, failed to take easy scramble yards, and looked like the mental ask was limiting his physical gifts. And let’s be honest, had the Broncos lost to Kansas City, the conversation this week would have centered on what’s wrong with Nix and Payton.
The narrative changed last Sunday because of how Nix played, who he played, and what it looked like.
This is an offense that can work. Payton remains a magnet for criticism because of his play-calling, but he dialed up huge gains to Pat Bryant and Troy Franklin that were brilliant. In doing so, it restored Nix’s confidence.
Go back and watch that final drive. There is no way Nix connects on back-to-back third down conversions with Courtland Sutton without his third quarter momentum. And it is impossible to imagine success on his biggest pass without the coach and the quarterback reading from the same pages of the playbook.
When watching film, Payton likes to ask the question: Was the result because of the play or the player?
It was clearly a quarterback drive and quarterback play that beat the Chiefs. On second-and-8 from the 47-yard line, Nix looked left to a completely covered Franklin. It screamed for a conservative decision. Instead, he lofted the equivalent of a back-shoulder pass for a 32-yard gain. It was a perfect throw.
So, who is right about the offense? Nix or Payton?
Both are. The Broncos need a smooth pace of operation to help the quarterback. And they require sprinkles of tempo to get the engine revving.
So many questions were answered in one half of football. Beginning Sunday night at Washington, if the Broncos want to still be playing in February, Nix and Payton must show it was not an aberration.
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