The Broncos didn’t score for more than 37 minutes on Sunday night against the Los Angeles Rams. Then they ripped off 30 points in a span of 22 minutes, survived one last gasp from Matthew Stafford and company and won 30-26.
Here are 7 Thoughts on a wild night.
1. How much longer can the Broncos bank on second-half Bo to bail out first-half Bo?
A simple question posed to one of the most straight-ahead players in the Broncos’ locker room, left guard Ben Powers.
How do you guys keep doing this?
Powers laughed.
“You tell me, man,” he said.
In a Broncos locker room still buzzing from another bout of bewildered excitement and brimming with confidence, a paradoxical tension hung in the air like the leftover smoke from “Club Dub.”
Every time Denver pulls off another close win, every time Bo Nix lights another rocket-fuel comeback, every time the Broncos defense makes a game-tilting play in crunch time, every time the digit ticks up on what has become an obscenely good mark in one-score games — now 13-2 since the start of the 2025 season — competing thoughts bounce back and forth as if bound by Newton’s Third Law of Motion. Thatap the one about actions followed by equal and opposite reactions.
Thought one: Somehow, the Broncos always find a way to win these wild games.
Thought two: They’ve got to figure out how to play much better, or they will inevitably feel the consequences.
If you think that winning close game after close game reinforces the confidence in players that they will continue winning close games, you’re absolutely right.
If you think that winning close game after close game also drives ever higher the sense of urgency to figure out how to not get steamrolled for two or three quarters every week, you’re absolutely right.
“I’m comfortable with the grit of a team that can play well in the fourth quarter,” head coach Sean Payton said. “I’m uncomfortable with how we’ve played early in games. … As the head coach, you can’t possibly be comfortable with the way the first half unfolded.”
In three first halves this season, Denver has scored 10 points.
The offense has 17 full drives before halftime. They have resulted in: 10 punts, two interceptions, one touchdown, one field goal, one missed field goal.
Those 17 drives have generated just 18 total first downs and 10 of the drives have featured one or zero first downs.
In three second halves this season, Denver has scored 50 points.
The offense has 14 full drives after halftime. They have resulted in: five touchdowns, two field goals, one close-out drive, three punts, one turnover on downs, one interception, one fumble.
Those 14 drives have generated 33 first downs and eight of the drives have featured one or zero first downs. However, five of those one/zero drives came against Kansas City. The Broncos have had just three more in the past two weeks.
The natural question becomes what is driving the massive gap in production from early in games to late. It doesn’t always break out as cleanly as halftime. Last week against Jacksonville, the Broncos moved the ball the entire second quarter but melted down twice in the red zone.
There are endless details at play, and no two games unfold the same way — although trips to Empower Field these days do feel like the most heart-stopping version of “Groundhog Day.”
Two themes, though, that Broncos and players don’t really have good answers for at this point:
The first is Nix’s play early in games. How many more times can the Broncos bank on second-half Bo to bail out first-half Bo?
For every dart across the middle, perfectly placed touchdown pass or highlight-reel 2-point conversion play in the second half against the Rams, there is an early-game head-scratcher.
This has been Nix in a nutshell since he joined the NFL. Some people see Mr. Clutch. One of the best quarterbacks in football. Fourth-quarter comebacks and a gaudy record and a guy who’s a no-doubt long-term franchise cornerstone.
Others see the inefficiency in many of his metrics. The all-or-nothing passing game and the fraught starts and the bouts of wildness.
Taken all together, many of the numbers outside the wins column add up to what looks on paper like boring, middle-of-the-road production, even though Nix is anything — and maybe everything — except boring and middle of the road.
Against Los Angeles, Nix was lucky to avoid interceptions on two entirely ill-advised throws and he did not play comfortably in the pocket or deliver the ball accurately on a consistent basis until well into the second half.
Then he got in a rhythm, threw a pair of touchdown passes and sneaked in the game-winner.
Final line: 50% completions for 186 yards, a pick along with the two touchdowns and a 73.9 passer rating.
The eye test and the statistical output couldn’t be more different. Neither could the early-game struggles and the late-stage heroics.
The water doesn’t have to always rest at exactly level, but at some point itap going to have to be more level than this.
Payton has talked in generalities about the phenomenon before but more directly acknowledged it Sunday night.
“Thatap the $6 million question, honestly, and I think that we’re trying to sort through this first quarter,” Payton said. “He has — obviously the moments aren’t too big (for him) and he moves and escapes and makes plays, but it leads us to that first part of the jigsaw, which is, man, we have to find a way to play better earlier. … It starts with me or it starts with a group of us before it ever gets to Bo. That was one of our big points of emphasis coming into this game was just, we knew the type of offense they had and we felt starting out (well) was going to be important for us and yet it didn’t happen.
“So I’m pleased with how we responded, but … it’ll cost us in bigger games.”
Payton called it a $6 million question, but it could end up feeling more like a $60 million-a-year question. Nix is the Broncos’ unquestioned leader. He’s made magic, led Denver to an AFC title game and now helms a team off to a 2-1 start against a formidable schedule.
The 2024 first-round draft pick is 26-11 now as Denver’s starter. And yet, he and the Broncos’ offensive staff have not yet cracked the code on getting consistent production from him from the start of games.
Winning does a lot and, importantly, it buys time. But time is in finite supply, too, and just like the offense, Payton’s words convey a growing sense that Nix and the Broncos have to figure this out and do it quickly.
Every time Nix and the offense pull off another one like Sunday, that reality becomes clearer.
2. The Broncos keep thinking they have good first-half plans and itap not entirely clear why they’ve been wrong. An actual commitment to the run game might help.
If there were an easy answer to Denver’s early game struggles, the club would have identified it by now.
Instead, some version of the same bedeviling fact set keeps playing out.
“You’re kind of like, ‘Why isn’t this working?’” tight end Adam Trautman told The Post. “We practiced this all week, we knew what we’d get, we schemed it. We’ve seen other teams doing it to them and it worked for them. And you’re like, ‘Why?’”
It is easy to wonder, looking at the tablet on the sideline between series.
“Itap hard to tell because all you’re getting is the pictures (on the tablet) and you’re like, where is it not working?” Trautman said. “I have zero answer for it, honestly. I really wish I knew.”
What has worked to some degree or another in each of Denver’s three games so far is doubling down on the running game early in the second half.
The Broncos never did get on track against Kansas City, but they ran it three straight times to open the third quarter. The past two weeks, itap paid off, too.
There is still a lot left on the table, though. Denver’s running backs carried 20 times Sunday night for just 57 yards. The key, in the mind of several players and for Payton, was that they actually tried it.
At halftime, J.K. Dobbins, RJ Harvey and Tyler Badie had a total of seven carries for 17 yards.
The numbers still didn’t look great after halftime, but look at the first play of Denver’s first five second-half drives: Dobbins for 6 yards, Dobbins for 6 yards, Dobbins for 5 yards, Dobbins for no gain, Dobbins for 6 yards. It wasn’t until Denver’s go-ahead touchdown drive late that the offense started a second-half drive with a pass.
“Itap all confidence. We’re moving the ball,” Trautman said. “Thatap a damn good interior — the whole D-line over there is, like, ‘Oh my god, they’re so good’ and they don’t even have Myles Garrett right now. Their defensive backs are really good, their corners and their nickel.”
Payton and Nix both said versions of the same thing.
“We got to some runs that kept us on schedule and took some pressure off the QB,” Payton said.
Surmised Trautman: “We have to figure it out faster than we’ve figured it out so far because we have so many good players. We have so many good players and we just have to figure out what works for us and grind on that.”
3. Pat Bryant produces, even after long dry spells
Midway through the third quarter, second-year wide receiver Pat Bryant didn’t just have zero catches. The ball hadn’t come his way at all.
Once it did, though, boy did the former third-round pick out of Illinois make his presence felt.
Bryant hauled in Denver’s first touchdown of the game on third-and-goal, leaped over a Rams defender to bring down a tying two-point conversion on the offense’s next score, bailed out Dobbins by recovering a fumble in the fourth quarter and then made the longest offensive play of the night with a 39-yard catch-and-run on the Broncos’ game-winning touchdown drive.
“Honestly, the game will come to you,” he said afterward. “I like to say that the football gods don’t like guys who sit around and complain and whine and cry. So I just go out there and continue to try to get open as often as possible and when the ball is in the air, I feel like itap mine.”
The 2-point conversion looked like a broken play, but only to an extent. Bryant went to block the defensive back in front of him as Nix faked a receiver screen to Sutton, apparently in hopes that Waddle would come free over the middle. L.A. didn’t bite, though, so Bryant turned and boxed out. Nix threw the ball up high to him and he went up and rebounded it.
Bryant said the exact same thing happened in practice against the Broncos’ scout team.
“I told Bo, like, if ain’t nobody open, just throw it up,” Bryant said. “If the DBs don’t turn, I feel like I’m always open.”
Just like they drew it up. Kind of.
4. A three-play sequence that showed the Rams weren’t afraid of challenging Pat Surtain II
Every time Pat Surtain II and Davante Adams are on the same field, the matchup between them is must-see.
Adams made several plays against Surtain on Sunday night en route to finishing with seven catches on 13 targets for 137 yards.
One particular sequence showed the Rams’ willingness to do what virtually nobody else in football will: Challenge the multiple-time All-Pro.
Surtain showed visible frustration after a two-minute drill catch by Adams as L.A. drove for a field goal to close the first half. But Surtain’s reaction was only partially about the 14 yards on that particular catch.
The Broncos started the drive giving cushion and Stafford calmly hit Adams for 13 on an out-breaking route against Surtain. Sensing the best cornerback in football might be liable to get aggressive after a fairly easy completion against him, Rams coach Sean McVay dialed up a double move for Adams. Surtain was on it, the ball was overthrown for an incompletion. Then L.A. came right back to the out-breaker for 14 more.
Itap about as consistently as anybody has thrown at Surtain in a game in recent memory and about as productive as a receiver’s been against Surtain in several years. And yet, Surtain still made life difficult for Adams on several occasions.
There are more good offenses on the schedule, but there aren’t a ton of future Hall of Fame quarterbacks throwing to future Hall of Fame receivers who rank among the best route runners of all time.
5. When it came to dealing with Aaron Donald and company on the interior offensive line, the Broncos got help from their unsung leader
Quinn Meinerz is an All-Pro and clearly one of the best offensive linemen in football. On the other side of center Luke Wattenberg, of course, is left guard Ben Powers. He’s in a contract year, took a pay cut this summer and, in the eyes of his position coach, is playing terrific football.
“When we got here in 2023, Ben was the guy I felt like was the must-get for us and I said as much,” offensive line coach Zach Strief told The Post earlier in the week. “He is a culture-setter. He is the right person. He is always going to be under-appreciated. Always. Because people don’t like the way that it looks. But he’s as productive as any player in football. He’s an outstanding pass-protector. He’s built himself into an outstanding zone runner, which a lot of people said he couldn’t be. He does everything the right way.”
In the lead-up to the game, a reporter asked Strief about Powers playing down the stretch of the 2025 season. The long-time NFL tackle got emotional talking about Powers.
“That whole thing, coming back from that injury and wanting to play, having that (foot) injury happen and having none of us know about it — that stuff is… the amount of admiration I have for that player is kind of hard to express,” Strief said. “He really was the first guy that we said, thatap the guy we’re going to start rebuilding this room with. He’s been everything we hoped he would be.”
6. Strief has a terrific Aaron Donald-related claim to fame
All week, Broncos players marveled at Donald’s return from retirement and said they figured he’d be back to his old self.
Largely, thatap been the case for the sure-fire Hall of Famer who is on the shortlist of the best defensive players in league history.
Funny enough, Strief has a very particular claim to fame regarding Donald.
“You get the question all the time, you played 12 years in the NFL, who’s the best lineman you ever played?” Strief said. His answer is Donald, categorically. “Thank god I didn’t actually have to block him that much.
“Ironically, his first preseason game was against the Saints. I do believe I had a backside cutoff on the first play of the game and I do believe I was the first person to block him in the NFL. He swam behind me. He’s one of the all-time greats.”
7a. Hidden yardage makes a massive difference
A critical sequence: Payton getting the enforcement right after a special teams penalty
Hidden yardage showed up in a massive way for the Broncos in the third quarter. The Broncos had pulled within 16-8 and forced a Rams punt but punter Ethan Evans uncorked a 60-yard punt that undrafted rookie Kolbe Katsis muffed the punt and lost six yards back to the Broncos’ 9-yard line.
L.A., though, was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. Payton originally thought his option was 15 yards from the end of the return and a drive starting at his own 24. Instead, Payton was able to ask for the penalty to be enforced from the Rams’ original spot and to replay the punt. Evans hit just a 41-yarder from there.
Instead of the original start at their own 9, the Broncos offense instead started at their own 48. A 39-yard difference and a 24-yard improvement from if Payton had taken 15 yards from the end of the return.
Denver covered the 52 yards in seven plays and punched in a tying touchdown on an 8-yard Nix toss to tight end Nate Adkins.
7b. A wild stat about Matthew Stafford’s career
Having spent his entire playing career in the NFC, Stafford had only faced the Broncos twice before Sunday night and he’d only played in Denver on one other occasion.
That date: Oct. 30, 2011, nearly 15 years before this game.
That day, threw three touchdowns for Detroit in a 45-10 romp over the Broncos. Denver’s head coach and quarterback pair then: Josh McDaniels and Tim Tebow.
Imagine telling Stafford on that day that 15 years later he’d come back to the Front Range, throw 55 times for 390 yards and lose to a guy who at the moment was an 11-year-old middle schooler whose dad was the offensive coordinator at Charleston Southern.
7c. Kolbe Katsis not only made his NFL debut on Sunday night, he also broke a Broncos record.
The undrafted rookie receiver ran four kicks back for 107 total yards and returned three punts for 39. That total of 146 return yards is the most ever by a Denver player in his debut. To find the previous mark requires a trip into the Wayback Machine. Katisis bested Goldie Sellers’ 1966 mark of 144 yards.
7d. Game balls from Sean Payton can have a personal touch
Last week after Denver’s win against Jacksonville, the Broncos’ game ball recipients included tight end Evan Engram and defensive tackle D.J. Jones. They each played well — Engram in particular has shown early-season progress in being a functional run blocker — but they also each got a humorous bump in consideration because their alma mater, Ole Miss, notched a massive win earlier that weekend against LSU.
This week, Talanoa Hufanga was the easiest call of all because of his pair of fourth-quarter interceptions. Owners Greg Penner, Carrie Walton-Penner and Rob Walton, though, also got game balls for their win in what Payton described as “Family Feud.” Billionaire edition, in this case.
Walton is a cousin of Ann Walton, who is married to Stan Kroenke, owner of the Rams and several other sports franchises.
Their first meeting came on Christmas Day, 2022, and was a cataclysmic meltdown that led to Nathaniel Hackettap firing the next day and, ultimately, Payton’s hire.
This time around, the Walton-Penner group came out on top.
“I asked Greg to explain (the family tree) to me and then about a minute in I said, ‘I’m just going to say they’re close,’” Payton joked.
