If Gary Kubiak hadn’t sat through Broncos 33, Jaxson Dart 32 in the flesh, he would have never Bo-lieved it.
“That comeback against the Giants was incredible,” the former Broncos coach and QB said of watching Denver’s bonkers, beautiful 33-32 win over the G-Men on Alumni Weekend at Empower Field. “When you’ve got a young QB playing well in the NFL, it allows you to do a lot of things with your football team.”
Except, apparently, sway the national pundits.
The Broncos are the Rodney Dangerfields of the AFC West, a paper tiger caged below the fold. When the talking heads see the Broncos’ 6-2 start — the franchise’s first 6-2 mark through eight games since 2016, Kubiak’s final season at the helm — they become royal pains in the asterisks.
Well, the Bengals had Jake Browning. Well, the Eagles got too cute. Well, the Giants haven’t learned how to win yet. Well, the Cowboys were a walking infirmary.
The Broncos might as well be 2-2-4: Two wins, two losses, and four caveats.
Kubes, though?
Kubes sees something else.
He sees belief, the most dangerous, dearest virus in an NFL locker room, the hope for which there is no cure. He sees a smile unfurling like a rainbow from one side of Dove Valley to the next.
“When you play 17 times, man, it’s so hard to be that consistent and keep that going,” Kubiak said of the Broncos, who visit another of his old clubs, the Houston Texans (3-4), on Sunday morning at NRG Stadium, just down the road from the family ranch.
“You look around the league, you see some teams that are bit by the injury bug so bad … the NFL is a war of attrition. You survive for 17 weeks. These middle weeks of an NFL season are so key — in Weeks 10-11-12-13, it’s just so key that you stack some wins up.”
Any way you can. The Broncos’ offense slept through a 13-11 snoozer over the Jets in Week 6. It woke up in time to save the day in a come-from-the-abyss victory over a red-hot Giants bunch in Week 7.
“We won games all kinds of ways (in 2015),” the 64-year-old Kubiak recalled. “That season, I remember going to Kansas City (and winning 31-24) after we beat Baltimore 19-13. That’s a thing for teams that are really built well — they have that ability to (win) in a lot of ways.”
The Super Bowl 50 Broncos, Kubes’ masterpiece, took the scenic route to 12-4. Bradley Roby’s game-winning fumble return in KC. Ronnie Hillman’s two TD runs against Green Bay. Von Miller’s two sacks in San Diego. DeMarcus Ware’s recovery of A.J. McCarron’s botched snap in Week 16.
“I would describe it this way,” Kubiak continued. “You watch these great coaches in the NFL, it’s about winning the game. It really is. There are so many ways on Sunday you could win. Teams that are built to win have the ability to win on offense or win defensively or go over (to London) and win a game 13-11.”
During a 4-0 streak that dates back to Sept. 29, the Broncos haven’t just been stacking up wins. They’ve been stacking faith, one brick at a time. What you call miracles, they call mortar.
“Teams get really close when they can go and win 13-10 and then go out and win 35-31,” Kubiak explained. “There’s a closeness on a team of, ‘Hey, it takes all of us.’ (If) we have a bad game on defense, then the offense puts it together.”
It’s left tackle Garett Bolles jumping into a media scrum a few days ago to give tailback J.K. Dobbins grief in Spanish. It’s offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi referring to 41-year-old tight end Marcedes Lewis as “the eighth wonder of the world.” It’s Sean Payton comparing rookie wideout Pat Bryant to a nipping puppy.
“It’s about finding a coach that says, ‘This is how we beat this team.’ It’s not saying as a coach, ‘This is what we do all the time,’” Kubiak said.
“You look at any good team and they have the ability to win in three ways … Whether it’s blocking a kick or returning a punt, when you have that ability, when you’re not just an offensive team or you’re not just a defensive team. When you’ve got some consistency in what you’re doing, that’s a great feeling when you walk out there on Sunday.”
We’re not saying the 2025 Broncos are singing from 2015’s hymnal. But you can hum the tunes from memory now, old psalms that get a little sweeter, a little louder, by the week. And a road win without Pat Surtain II would be the surest hallelujah yet.
“They’re in great hands,” Kubiak said. “Sean is such a good football coach, a detailed football coach. Just watching them practice, I know half that staff — VJ (Vance Joseph), Joe and all of them. It’s fun to watch right now.”
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