The AFC West runs through Denver.
The Broncos knocked off nine-time defending champion Kansas City in walk-off, deja vu-defying fashion Sunday and grabbed full control of their future in the process.
The Broncos are 9-2, winners of eight straight and pacing the division now by two full games. They pushed Kansas City to 5-5, the brink of relevance this fall, and made their candidacy as a real player in the NFL undeniable in one fell swoop.
Now comes a bye week, which arrives on a high note but also comes, as it always does, with questions to answer.
Here are seven thoughts after the win.
1. When the Broncos offense got in gear in the second half, it came after Bo Nix “begged” Sean Payton to get plays called faster. Now comes decision time for what the Denver offense is down the stretch.
Bo Nix looked to the sideline, found head coach Sean Payton and spun his hand in a circle, signaling something along the lines of “hurry up.”
Then he started clapping his hands and eventually yelled, “Let’s go.”
Denver was facing third-and-16 to start the second quarter Sunday against Kansas City, and Nix appeared frustrated.
He stepped into the back of Denver’s huddle shaking his head, then relayed the play from Payton to his offense.
Denver broke the huddle with 12 seconds on the play clock and snapped the ball with four left.
This was a low-percentage situation, obviously, and the Broncos punted the ball away after a 9-yard dump-off to tight end Evan Engram.
Two possessions later, the Broncos started a drive with 1:46 before halftime, and again Nix looked from the back of the huddle at Payton and rolled his finger as if to tell the coach again to hurry up.
The Broncos tried to go quickly after he scrambled for 8 yards on first down, given the time remaining in the first half, but the drive stalled out.
In the second half, though, Nix and Payton found a rhythm. They used tempo in spots, though not overwhelmingly, and the first downs and points started to pile up.
“Oh, here comes the tempo question. Let’s go,” Payton huffed after the Broncos’ 22-19, AFC West-rattling victory.
As much as Payton might want to frame this conversation as some kind of media creation, it is not. His quarterback likes playing fast. Nix and Payton have each said as much. Payton earlier in the season acknowledged it and quickly followed with, “but sometimes maybe I don’t want to play fast.”
CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson pointed to the start of the second quarter and said Nix was “begging” Payton to get a play-call in faster.
She added, “Then the offensive line came off and said, ‘We need to change the tempo.’”
Interesting note here from Tracy Wolfson, who said Bo Nix was “begging” Sean Payton to get a third-down call in faster.
“The offensive line came off and said ‘We need to change the tempo.’”
Not the first time that’s happened this year. pic.twitter.com/nV8Iq1wNa5
— Parker Gabriel (@ParkerJGabriel) November 16, 2025
Getting a play call into the quarterback in a timely manner is only one part of playing with tempo, and foregoing a huddle doesn’t necessarily mean playing fast. But Denver’s rhythm in the second half coincided with Nix getting to the line with plenty of time to survey the Kansas City defense and also with the occasional deployment of no-huddle or a kind of sugar huddle.
As Denver mounted a clinical 11-play, 89-yard touchdown drive, for example, Nix went without a huddle a handful of times.
The first came after the Broncos got their first first down of the drive — a natural point for Payton to push the pace because the defense had just been on the field for a long drive itself, and Payton didn’t want to play fast right into a three-and-out.
Then the Broncos went no-huddle into a third-and-8 call that led to a Troy Franklin 35-yard go ball down the left sideline. Franklin absolutely roasted press coverage by Kristian Fulton.
Further no-huddle snaps followed in a 13-yard completion to Courtland Sutton and a 1-yard rush by RJ Harvey, though Denver did at times substitute through that portion of the drive.
All along, CBS commentator and former Dallas quarterback Tony Romo noted repeatedly how much sooner Nix was getting to the line and how much he thought Nix’s play was impacted by getting a good, long look at Denver’s defense.
“There were three plays, basically, we tempo’d,” Payton said. “Sometimes you hurry to maybe beat a challenge. So, anyway, next question.”
It’s not clear exactly what Payton thought might have been challenged on any of the plays during Denver’s 11-play touchdown drive.
Denver scored on four of its final five drives, and Nix threw for 215 yards in the second half after logging 80 passing yards in the first half.
“We just executed plays better. I think that’s all it comes down to,” right tackle Mike McGlinchey said. “When you execute one, you get a first down, all of a sudden — two starts flowing, and you stay on the field. It’s really hard finding rhythm and tempo when you’re going three-and-out, and we didn’t do that a lot today. So it was helpful for our offense, and a huge step forward.”
Which all leads to one of the key questions for the Broncos going into the bye week.
J.K. Dobbins isn’t coming back this season outside of a potential Super Bowl appearance. The Broncos are young in the backfield and still pretty young at quarterback, too.
So, what will Payton decide is the best formula offensively? Is it the way they’ve operated mostly through 11 games? Is it more tempo, more quarterback-involved run, more catered to the things that Nix likes?
These don’t necessarily have to be wholesale changes, but the Broncos have been judicious in picking spots to dial up designed runs for Nix. Payton called one quarterback power for Nix on Sunday, and he certainly remembers the transverse process fractures Nix suffered in his back when he took an awkward hit against Las Vegas last year.
At the same time, Nix has been strikingly clear about the things he likes over the past few months. He likes playing fast. He likes when the Broncos establish the run early. He likes being an athlete. He likes when he’s got a lot of time at the line of scrimmage for pre-snap processing.
Anything other than an approach built around those qualities for the stretch run would constitute a head-scratcher.
2. Two of Kansas City’s longest gains were Riley Moss defensive pass interference penalties. That’s a good thing, a bad thing and something Vance Joseph probably needs to consider through the bye week.
Good on Broncos cornerback Riley Moss for taking accountability for a late-game, 46-yard pass interference penalty that set up Kansas City’s go-ahead touchdown.
A 40-yarder he was called for earlier in the game was questionable at best, but on the second pass-interference flag, he didn’t react well to an underthrown ball from Patrick Mahomes, didn’t get his head turned around and grabbed Hollywood Brown while trying to slow himself down.
“I will absolutely own up to that last one — underthrown ball — I can’t be grabbing like that,’’ Moss said. “It’s tough, it’s already a tough position, and you know, I’ve got to be able to, in those situations, not panic and play the ball. In practice, it’s going to be a big emphasis.’’
Broncos players have joked — and sometimes privately expressed real frustration — about the manner in which Moss has been officiated so far this season. Fellow cornerback Pat Surtain II recently said on his podcast that, “they’re racially profiling my dog.”
Payton and several players were livid with Brad Rogers’ officiating crew in Week 7 at the nearly game-deciding pass interference penalty on Moss that set up the New York Giants’ go-ahead touchdown in the final minute of that game.
Still, the reality is Moss has been called for DPI nine times in 11 games. No other player in the NFL, according to FTN’s Aaron Schatz, has been penalized more than five.
“In practice we’re going to put the boxing gloves on me, we’re going to tape them up so there’s no chance of — it’s a repetitive thing and people can have their opinion on it, but me as a professional athlete I have to be able to realize, ‘ok, this has happened to me multiple times, it’s unfair sometimes and it sucks, (but) I can’t be in that position as much as I have been,’” Moss said.
Certainly, there’s technique to clean up. Moss is uniquely wired to where he’s able to bounce back from bad plays. For most of Sunday, he did a terrific job limiting Kansas City’s top receiver Rashee Rice. Rice averaged 71.6 yards over his first three games back from a six-game suspension. On Sunday, he had six catches for 38 yards. That’s not a coincidence.
Nor is it a coincidence, however, that when the Chiefs were in long-yardage situations, Mahomes made sure he had somebody running deep against Moss.
That’s a big target to have on your back, and Moss is wearing it. He oftentimes looks for flags after a play, gestures toward officials or throws his hands up as if to show extra effort of not making contact.
He’s got plenty of reason to gripe with some of the calls, but the Broncos are fortunate they didn’t lose either the Giants game or this one because of his flags.
Not only that, but they’ve got to know that down the stretch teams are going to do what Kansas City did: Find No. 21, throw deep against him and hope for the best.
It’s a tough situation for defensive coordinator Vance Joseph and company. Moss is far too good a player to consider benching, and they won’t want to curb what makes him hard to complete passes against, but they’re going to have to account for teams’ willingness to roll the dice down the field in obvious “let’s hope to draw an interference flag” situations.
“It’s tough for me, because I like to get physical at the line, I like to get hands on,’’ Moss said. “And then at the catch point, I like to get hands on because the receivers, most of the time, are pushing off. … After that underthrown one and I was grabbing, that situation I should have more depth and play top down and make that play.’’
3. J.K. Dobbins is hoping to be able to return from a Lisfranc injury if the Broncos make the Super Bowl, but he faces a long and sometimes treacherous recovery from a tricky injury
Broncos veteran running back J.K. Dobbins was placed on injured reserve Saturday, has already had surgery to repair a Lisfranc injury, and a source told The Denver Post that the 26-year-old running back hoped to be back to play in the Super Bowl on Feb. 8 should the Broncos make it that far.
Not impossible, but not easy, according to Dr. Nicholas Strasser, an orthopedic foot and ankle surgeon and an assistant professor of orthopedics at Vanderbilt University.
Recovery from surgery can vary depending on the nature of the injury, but the most significant Lisfranc injuries can take 6-9 months or more, Strasser said.
Even for a more subtle injury that still requires surgery, less than three months is an aggressive timeline.
“If it’s a more subtle injury, it’s potentially something you can rehab more quickly and get back on your feet quicker,” Strasser told The Post, noting that he doesn’t know the specifics of Dobbins’ injury itself.. “I would say – and I don’t know their rehab protocols — you do need to give it time to heal. You need to give time off of it. … It’s not totally unrealistic for February, thinking through the timeline. A lot of things would have to go his way and probably have to have a lot of luck as well.”
What was not surprising to Strasser, though, was the amount of time Dobbins and the Broncos took working through options.
The Lisfranc joint is in the center of the foot, and it’s where the five metatarsals come together and are joined by several other bones and many ligaments.
Most Lisfranc injuries, including Dobbins’, are ligament tears rather than bone fractures. Ligaments can tear partially or entirely, or they can become dislodged from a bone. Because of the number of ligaments in the area, the most serious injuries involve multiple tears and more mild versions might include one partial tear.
“It’s not always straightforward. It’s not as simple as, say, a broken ankle where you can clearly see it on X-ray,” Strasser said. “There can be degrees of injury and the more subtle injuries that — it’s not just one ligament that holds that joint together, there’s multiple. So you can have a partial tear of one part of the ligament, but the other part is OK and it holds the foot in good enough, normal anatomy and normal alignment, and once it heals, it’s fine without surgical treatment.”
Dobbins, of course, required surgery, but the group didn’t decide on that for several days.
“When you go to make the diagnosis, it involves physical exam, so where does it hurt, and examination of instability,” Strasser said. “There’s obviously the MRI and CT scans that get done, but sometimes the best way to test is to get a really good set of weight-bearing X-rays to see what the joints do when you’re loading them. So it’s usually a combination of all those things together.
“You’d think it would be as simple as looking at an MRI, but sometimes those structures are a little bit different to see and with an MRI you’re not putting weight on it, so you’re not seeing whether the ligaments are gapping open or not.”
The same things that make Lisfranc injuries difficult to diagnose fully are what make them difficult to recover from. There are a lot of moving pieces — literally — in the foot, and it’s an area that is used every time you take a step or put any kind of force through your legs.
They can also come with down-the-road complications, which make for yet another hurdle for Dobbins to clear. He already sustained a devastating, multi-part knee injury in 2020, a torn Achilles in 2023 and another knee injury in 2024.
Lisfranc is a daunting add to the list.
“They can affect your career because they not only keep you out for a while, but there are some cases that can lead to arthritis and other more long-term challenges as well,” Strasser said. “So it’s a tricky one to treat.”
4. Marvin Mims Jr. made a big impact after being out for two weeks. But how did he feel about the moment he got the concussion in the first place?
Broncos wide receiver and ace return man Marvin Mims Jr. waited a long time to impact a game again.
He missed two straight games in the NFL’s concussion protocol before clearing through a full week of practice last week and then running his first punt return chance Sunday back 70 yards.
Mims watched the past two games on television and said it was tough not to be involved.
“You kind of see certain situations where you know you could make a play out of things, and it doesn’t always fall like that, but just to be back out here (was great),” he said. “Watching on TV sucks. So to be back out here on the sidelines and in the game felt a lot better.”
Mims, of course, wasn’t actually supposed to be in the game late in a 20-point victory against Dallas last month when he sustained the concussion. He was only in the game because of what Payton described as a communication error when special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi tried to sub running back Tyler Badie in for Mims and he actually subbed in for rookie RJ Harvey.
Mims looked to be tracking toward a return against Las Vegas but had a setback during the short practice week after being a limited practice participant on Tuesday and wasn’t able to clear through.
So does he harbor any ill will that he missed two games due to a mistake?
“Not really,” Mims told The Post. “At the end of the day, it was just kind of a weird thing. They come over and say, ‘OK, you’re down.’ At the end of the day, if it was a close game, I’d have been out there, so I don’t really feel any kind of way about it.
“Just being out there, you want to play. So later hearing that I wasn’t supposed to be out there, it kind of sucks, but at the end of the day it’s just how things unfolded.”
5. Frank Crum might be a reserve offensive lineman, but he’s also learning how to be a threat on the Broncos’ field goal block unit. On Sunday, he made a massive play.
Second-year Broncos offensive lineman Frank Crum is a man of many hats.
He’s a reserve tackle with considerable promise. He’s Denver’s jumbo tight end now that Alex Palczewski is the full-time left guard. He’s on Denver’s field goal protection unit.
And starting Week 8 against the Cowboys, Crum also started playing in the middle of the Broncos’ field goal block.
Sunday, he made one of the biggest plays of Denver’s 22-19 win.
He leapt up and blocked Harrison Butker’s extra point attempt with 9:57 to go in regulation, holding Kansas City’s lead to 19-16 instead of four points.
Interestingly, the undrafted tackle out of Wyoming also played on the block for two games last season, but almost never before that.
So, the first blocked kick of his career came in his sixth NFL game trying to get one.
“I did it once in college — the last game I ever played,” Crum told The Post earlier this month. “(Former Wyoming coach Craig Bohl), it was kind of just a fun thing. Let’s see if I can go get one.”
Crum is 6-foot-8 and a terrific athlete, so the idea makes perfect sense.
“Shoot, I like getting out on the field,” he said. “Whatever they’re asking me to do.”
Crum after the Houston game acknowledged he wasn’t sure if he’d ever get a block, saying, “I feel like there’s some luck involved in it.
“I could put the wrong hand up, and if I put the other hand up I’d have got it,” he said. “So, it’s just, you keep trying and trying and trying until you get it.”
Well, he’s got one now, and a big one at that.
It makes two straight weeks that Rizzi’s units have blocked a kick. Last week, safety JL Skinner stormed through Las Vegas’ punt formation and blocked an AJ Cole punt with his facemask.
Crum might well be a budding threat on field goal block, but he readily admits he’s still a novice. Against Dallas — his first game on duty — he got hit hard by offensive linemen every time he jumped.
“When it comes to what I know about special teams, it really only extends to my specific position on field goal block,” he said. “I don’t know a ton about the grand scheme strategy. You can know if a guy’s a low-ball kicker and, obviously, the further they go back, the lower it’s going to come out, so you’re playing a numbers game.
“I’m tall, I can jump. That’s really the strategy.”
6. Wil Lutz had one walk-off kick for the Broncos in his first two years on the job. Now he’s got three in the past five weeks.
Sean Payton had a simple thought when discussing Wil Lutz’s 35-yard walk-off field goal against the Chiefs on Sunday.
“That’s why he’s here,” Payton said.
He and Lutz have been together for years now, dating back to the 2016 season in New Orleans.
Until Payton found Lutz, a roster cutdown casualty by Baltimore that summer, he’d cycled through 10 kickers in as many seasons as a head coach.
Lutz has been his kicker ever since.
“It’s good to be someone’s guy in this league,” Lutz said recently. “Sean and I have won a lot of games together. We’ve hit some big kicks together. And it’s just understanding each other. He knows how to kind of get me in the right place. I know how to work under him. It’s just a trust thing. I’m grateful for being in a 10th year with him. My one bad year wasn’t with him — though I wouldn’t say that’s why.
“We know how to work together, and the success under him has been fun.”
Lutz had missed each of the past two weeks — a 59-yarder on a blustery night against Las Vegas that Payton said after the game he regretted trying in the first place, and a 51-yarder blocked against Houston.
His other miss this year was a crucial one — a 42-yarder in the fourth quarter of a 29-28 loss Week 2 at Indianapolis.
There’s a reason, though, that Payton trusts Lutz. It’s not just the consistency shown on a day like Sunday, when he made all five attempts, including a tying 54-yarder with 4:10 remaining.
It’s also that he knows how Lutz is going to respond to pressure, and he’s learned how to get the best out of his kicker.
Before a walk-off in Houston, Payton looked out at Lutz on the field and yelled, “Right through.” His scowl just for a second broke into a grin.
“Sean knows Wil pretty damn well,” Rizzi said. “He knows what he can say, what he can’t say, what to say in certain situations. When to say something, when not to say something. … He’s probably said more than that at other times.”
Lutz had hit big kicks for the Broncos over the past two seasons, but his only true walk-off came on Monday Night Football in Buffalo in November 2023, and he was more spooked than happy after the game because he’d originally missed the kick. A mulligan only appeared when the Bills had 12 men on the field.
This year hasn’t been perfect, but Lutz has made big kicks when it counts. Three walk-offs in five weeks is quite a run.
Lutz smiled recently when asked what it takes to be that kind of steady presence for Payton.
“That’s a deep question,” he said. “You’ve got to trust yourself, one. You’ve got to understand his approach to the game. You’ve got to understand he’s an intense coach. He’s able to pull the best out of every player. He was giving me a hard time in field goal period yesterday, and we kind of have fun with that. You’ve got to know how to handle that.
“He’s got to know how to handle us, and he does a really good job kind of reading the room and understanding his players.”
7a. One of the keys to Sunday’s game between the Broncos and Chiefs always figured to be the red zone.
Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes entered the game just 1 of 10 in the red zone in three games against Vance Joseph as Denver’s defensive coordinator.
Joseph’s defense continued to do quality work in scoring territory for much of the game Sunday.
The Broncos forced Kansas City into field goal attempts the first two times they found the red zone, and then Ja’Quan McMillian picked Mahomes off at the end of a long drive to open the third quarter.
Mahomes and company finally found the end zone in the fourth quarter when he hit fellow future Hall of Famer Travis Kelce, who rumbled through a tackle attempt from Talanoa Hufanga and into the end zone.
Still, two touchdowns in 14 red zone trips over the past four non-throwaway games between these teams is a heck of a way to even a rivalry that had tilted so far in the Chiefs’ direction.
7b. Broncos receiver Courtland Sutton had been in a quiet spell, but he’s excelled on third down all season.
Well, he got it going against the Chiefs and continued to do his best work on the money down, too.
Quarterback Bo Nix missed Sutton on third-down targets early in the game but looked his way again on the Broncos’ game-winning drive in the fourth quarter.
First, Nix hit Sutton for 20 yards on third-and-15. Then he came back to him on a third-and-5, which Sutton converted by the slimmest of margins.
That set up a Nix corner route to Troy Franklin that put Denver squarely in field goal range and gave Wil Lutz a look at a 35-yard walk-off field goal — that he buried.
Sutton entered play leading the NFL in third-down yardage (264) and tied for third in receptions (17). The two critical conversions late give Sutton 16 first downs on 19 third-down grabs.
7c. Hat tip to Broncos nickel Ja’Quan McMillian. On Sunday, he became the first Denver defensive back in franchise history to log two sacks and an interception in the same game.
7d. A quick reset of the West and the AFC as Denver goes into the bye week.
AFC West
1. Denver: 9-2
2. L.A. Chargers: 7-4
3. Kansas City: 5-5
4. Las Vegas: 2-8
AFC
1. Denver: 9-2
2. New England: 9-2
3. Indianapolis: 8-2
4. Pittsburgh: 6-4
What a run the Broncos have been on. Enjoy the break.
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