Before he crashed from physical and emotional exhaustion on Sunday night, Bo Nix suggested something to his offense: Let’s go watch film together.
And thus, immediately after the 33-32 win over the Giants that almost wasn’t, the entire Broncos offense gathered to watch tape. It’s always helpful to see the game the same way, right tackle Mike McGlinchey said. And that Sunday, they all saw the same thing: a group that continues to win despite obvious “self-inflicted wounds,” as rookie wideout Pat Bryant said.
“I think Bo, just like the rest of us, is just sick of the yo-yo nature in which we’ve been playing offensive football,” McGlinchey told The Denver Post on Wednesday. “And we just want to get it better.”
Before the Broncos pulled off a miracle at Empower Field on Sunday, players could feel tensions flaring on the sidelines, Bryant said. The offense has played three objectively good quarters of football in their last 12, and nine uneven-to-bad ones. But Denver has still somehow won three straight games.
So this week, Bryant told The Post, this Broncos offense is trying something new: Meeting as a whole to break down film, in addition to individual positional meetings. Sunday’s session helped everyone get “on the same page,” Bryant said. So Nix offered another suggestion.
“He was like, ‘(expletive), we might as well just keep doing it,’” Bryant told The Post. “Because it was a lot of good things said.”
The Broncos have gone three-and-out on their initial drive of the game five straight weeks. They’ve scored 56% of their points in the fourth quarter alone over those five weeks, and are 4-1 in that stretch. They bust, until they boom.
Nix and the offense around him feel it’s not good enough.
“It’s insanely frustrating,” McGlinchey told The Post. “Because, if you can play complementary football the way that we know we’re capable of, it’s gonna be really hard to beat us. And the only thing that is going to keep us from beating us is us, if we keep beating the dead horse the way that we have been offensively.”
Nix told reporters on Wednesday that the group has “looked in a mirror” and seen the ways they’ve hurt themselves. They know they have a penalty problem, he said. They also know they have an execution problem. Particularly starting games.
“We’re kinda tired of being close,” Nix said. “So I think everybody’s working towards making those first few possessions count.”
For as much chatter as there’s been around the Broncos’ inconsistent commitment to the run game, the early-game distribution has not been the problem. Denver has run the ball seven times, compared to eight pass attempts, on opening drives across the last five games.
Head coach Sean Payton acknowledged some aspects of play-call sequencing need to be cleaned up, but pointed more to in-week prep as the root of Denver’s offensive incoherence. Bryant and McGlinchey both insist that problems lie in small details.
“It was some plays where all 11 players was doing they job,” Bryant said. “It was some plays where it was only four, you feel me? So it was up and down.”
That plays out most prominently in the Broncos’ screen game, a key part of Payton’s attack. Nix has thrown the most screens of any quarterback in the league through seven games, according to Pro Football Focus. A review of the tape against the Giants showed the Broncos blowing several blocks on screen plays. On second-and-8 in the second quarter, Payton sent out a three-tight-end formation on a swing pass for rookie RJ Harvey.
The concept was sound. Only two Giants defenders stood in front of Harvey after the catch. Three Broncos tight ends were in front of them. Except Evan Engram whiffed at blocking New York’s Cor’Dale Flott, and Adam Trautman and Nate Adkins both went to the same Giant and missed. Harvey lost 3 yards.
Well, uh, here’s a reason RJ Harvey isn’t getting much momentum in screen game/outside carries.
Three #Broncos TEs split out here to block two Giants defenders. They block none. Evan Engram misses. Harvey loses 3 https://t.co/MbfqIJJNrU pic.twitter.com/oacIacLH63
— Luca Evans (@bylucaevans) October 20, 2025
The Broncos ran six screens in the first half, according to The Post’s charting. Payton, though, deflected a question Wednesday about touch-and-go success in the screen game.
“And then there were some big ones,” Payton said. “Did you see those? How many?”
Two, three, a reporter responded.
“Not enough,” Payton replied. “Go watch it. Obviously, there’s some looks that we didn’t block exactly how we wanted to. But we ended up with some big plays by Tyler (Badie), Engram — Badie had a couple. So I’m not on the screen count.”
According to data and film from NFL’s Next Gen Stats, the Broncos had three total screen plays go for 10-plus yards against the Giants.
Other problems exist, including Nix’s varying ability to connect with receivers on deep and intermediate routes, particularly over the middle. The Broncos have closed beautifully, and impossibly, in Sunday’s case.
They’ve also left plenty on the table, even tied for the second-best record in the league at 5-2. And they know it.
“Eventually,” McGlinchey told The Post, “we’re going to play teams that we’re not going to be able to come back from. And that’s just not acceptable as we move forward, during the season.
“We’re too good,” he continued. “We have too good of a chance to do something special. And we gotta get it right.”
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