Denver Broncos fans already knew their special teams just swung the AFC West race. Now they’ve got an NFL insider putting a label on it. In her latest column for The Athletic, senior NFL reporter Dianna Russini said it’s “officially special teams season” and pointed straight at Darren Rizzi’s Broncos unit after their wild 22-19 win over the Kansas City Chiefs.
Dianna Russini Calls It ‘Officially Special Teams Season’ for Broncos
Russini framed it around the calendar and the temperature. As the weather turns brutal, she wrote, games stop being pretty, the ball feels like a brick and every hit looks worse. That’s when, as she put it, “disciplined teams use field position to grind out wins” and every point starts to feel bigger than it looks on the scoreboard.
To drive the point home, she got Broncos special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi on the phone during Denver’s bye week. Rizzi, fresh off a weekend in which his unit helped beat the Chiefs with blocked kicks, dominant field position and long Marvin Mims Jr. punt returns, gave her the same message he gives his players this time of year: it’s special teams season now.
The Broncos are more than fine with that. Coming out of Week 11, Denver sits at 9-2, on an eight-game win streak and in control of the AFC West after finally flipping the script on Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.
What ‘Special Teams Season’ Means for Darren Rizzi’s Unit
Rizzi is built for this moment. Denver hired him in February as special teams coordinator/assistant head coach, reuniting him with Sean Payton after their run together in New Orleans. With the Saints, Rizzi’s units were regulars near the top of the league’s special teams rankings, including a No. 1 finish in 2019 and multiple top-five seasons.
Against Kansas City in Week 11, Broncos special teams looked like a playoff weapon.
Kicker Wil Lutz went 5-for-5 on field goals, drilling kicks from 29, 24, 38 and 54 yards before knocking home the 35-yard game-winner as time expired. He scored 16 of Denver’s 22 points and was later named AFC Special Teams Player of the Week for the performance.
Mims, back in the lineup as an All-Pro returner, flipped the game twice. He ripped off a 70-yard punt return to set up one field goal, then added a 24-yard return that jump-started the game-tying drive in the fourth quarter.
Rookie punter Jeremy Crawshaw quietly turned in a monster day of his own. He averaged 52.8 yards per punt and pinned the Chiefs inside their own 20 on three different drives, forcing Mahomes to work on long fields all afternoon.
And then there was the play that perfectly fits Russini’s theme: offensive tackle Frank Crum knifing in to block a Chiefs extra point after a go-ahead touchdown. Instead of trailing by four, Denver stayed within a field goal — and Lutz eventually cashed that exact margin at the buzzer.
Add it all up, and you get the kind of three-phase win Russini was talking about when she said this stretch of the season belongs to disciplined special teams units.
Stats, Schedule & Context for Broncos After the Chiefs Win
The bigger picture makes her timing even more interesting. The Broncos hit their Week 12 bye at 9-2, tied with the New England Patriots for the AFC’s best record and holding a two-game lead in the AFC West.
They’re 8-0 in their last eight games and have leaned on late-game execution in nearly every one of them. Lutz already has five game-winning kicks this season, and Denver’s special teams have produced multiple AFC weekly and monthly awards over the last two years.
After the bye, the Broncos start a six-game sprint: at the Washington Commanders on November 30, at the Raiders, home vs the Packers and Jaguars, a Christmas night trip to Arrowhead, then a Week 18 showdown with the Chargers.
If the weather keeps getting worse and the games keep getting tighter, Denver may end up proving Russini right the hard way. In the AFC West right now, it really does look like “special teams season” just arrived — and the Broncos are built to live in it.
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