Markings of victory started with his shoulder pads and No. 10 jersey, which Nix still had on an hour after he had thrown for 279 yards and three touchdowns, including a go-ahead score in the final minute of regulation, in an overtime triumph against Buffalo in the divisional round of the AFC playoffs.

Eye black smudged across his face and grass stains on his white pants, which touched the Empower Field grass for the final time when he dropped to a knee, well into field goal range, after engineering a 75-yard, franchise-lifting drive to set up a walk-off field goal and deliver Denver to the AFC title game.

The signs of agony were there, too, though.

Nix had his entire uniform on except his cleats and his right sock, which had to be removed to perform the X-ray that confirmed a season-ending fracture in his ankle. He was not in the locker room amid the Club Dub smoke, deafening music and unbridled celebration. Instead, he sat in a hallway with his coach, Davis Webb, to his left, along with backup QBs Sam Ehlinger, Jarrett Stidham, and his family.

The whiplash of emotions over one hour was felt by Broncos fans, players and coaches — many of whom were driving home and at first thought the Nix news was fake. But no one felt that swirl more intensely than Nix himself.

He went from the brink of a Super Bowl run in his second year in the NFL to a helpless onlooker. From the center of the huddle to an Empower Field suite, a distance that must have felt like an ocean. From one step away to two ankle surgeries and an entire offseason spent working back toward just putting a game uniform on again.

Nine days later, the Broncos’ season finished four points shy of beating New England and playing in the Super Bowl. Nix still sounded fresh off the injury, but with at least some space to broaden his perspective. He talked through the injury itself, his reaction and emotions and then pointed to one potential silver lining.

“Fortunately for us in the NFL, there’s not really a timeline,” he said Jan. 28. “The timeline is on us and we can push it as much as we can. There’s going to be more years of this, more wins around here, more opportunities to go play for championships and that����ap the most important part.”

That is mostly true. If the Broncos and Nix have their way, he’ll be leading this team for another decade or more.

Still, when Nix takes the field Sept. 14 at Arrowhead Stadium, he will do so with a lot of new around him, too. Not so much in on-field personnel — though there’s one major addition — but in the apparatus built specifically around the quarterback. That����ap because time is of the essence, too.

Nix is eligible for a contract extension after the season, meaning he will get very expensive very quickly. The Broncos have an enviable core of talent across their roster and have spent $500 million-plus in the past two years retaining as much of it as they can. It only takes looking at Denver’s head coach himself, however, to understand that cores age quickly in the NFL. In the middle of training camp, Spotrac data showed only five rosters older on average than Denver’s.

For Nix and the Broncos, the time is now. What January revealed is that you never know when your best shot at a championship might arrive. Super Bowl windows in the NFL are often like the windows a quarterback searches for down the field. Sometimes by the time you recognize an opening, it����ap already starting to close.

While Nix rehabbed this offseason, the Broncos went about re-racking much of what made them an AFC force in 2025. Two marquee changes, though — promoting Webb to play-caller and trading a first-rounder and more for Jaylen Waddle — are Denver’s attempt to capitalize right now.

The window is open.

The clock is ticking.

Changing of the headset��

Payton sensed time working against him as early as the middle of the 2025 season.

Forty seconds once seemed like an eternity, but now they melted away more quickly.

Nix occasionally looked to the sideline as Payton scanned his playsheet through game-day eyeglasses. He’d spin his finger, imploring Payton to get a play in.

“Let����ap go,” broadcast cameras caught Nix yelling more than once.

Instead of barking back, Payton started to think about the longer term and about the dynamo standing next to him on the sideline.

Payton was once Webb. Or very much like him. He was 36 when Jim Fassel first gave him the chance to call plays for the New York Giants. It was December 1999, and Fassel missed some of the preparation week before the Giants played the New York Jets to attend his mother’s funeral.

The Jets’ head coach: Bill Parcells. Their defensive coordinator: Bill Belichick.

“I was like, ‘Thanks for the assignment,’” Payton quipped this summer.

With Payton at the controls, the Giants torched the Jets for 41 points and 490 yards. They had scored more than 24 once over their opening 12 games and hadn’t generated more than 384 yards.

Quarterback Kerry Collins threw for 341 yards that day and afterward, , said, “Some of the red zone calls were courageous; they were aggressive.”

Almost exactly 26 years later, Payton’s self-scouting left him pondering similar themes in similar terms but from a substantially different posture.

“It����ap said that, as you get older, maybe you don’t drive in the rain at night,” Payton mused in January, two weeks past his 62nd birthday, as the Broncos prepared to face Buffalo. “I can’t let that happen as a play caller. That����ap something that I have to mentally make sure it����ap quick. It����ap quick and decisive and it����ap daring at the right time.”

Payton could have tried to implore himself on that front through this offseason. He could have let Webb go to another team in a play-calling coordinator role.

Instead, he fired offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi and promoted Webb. He didn’t announce the play-calling change until a month later at the NFL Scouting Combine, but Webb had known since he accepted the job and called it a “no-brainer” once play-calling was on the table.

Few subjects this offseason have generated the unanimity that Webb has around the Broncos’ building. Everybody, to a person, believes Webb is going to be really good as a play-caller.

Right tackle Mike McGlinchey , when asked about the franchise’s faith in Webb earlier this summer, paused for a moment, as if considering it for the first time.

“Yeah, that����ap a good point,” the ninth-year right tackle allowed. “There is a lot of confidence for a guy that����ap never done it.

���ܳ�…

“I also don’t think it����ap wrong to have that confidence in Davis,” he continued. “And it����ap because of who he is and it����ap because of his love of the game of football. This is all he’s ever wanted to do. He’s been building this book for how he wants to do it for years now. I think there’s a self-confidence he has that really rubs off on everybody else. He projects that and he makes all the players who play for him feel it.

“That����ap the sign of a good coach.”

��Can Webb help Nix elevate into NFL’s upper echelon?��

Webb might be new to the offensive coordinator position, but his opening meeting this spring was not the first time he’d presented to the Broncos’ full offensive staff.

Weeks after Webb attempted 41 passes for the New York Giants in the final week of the 2022 season, he flew to Denver to interview for a job coaching quarterbacks under new Broncos coach Sean Payton.

Webb, as part of the interview, was asked to present to Denver’s newly assembled offensive staff, of which he would eventually become one of the final pieces.

Logan Kilgore had just been brought on as a quality control coach but knew of Webb, both as a fan and student of football but also because he’d built a close relationship with the Manning family over more than a decade and coached Arch Manning in high school during the 2022 season. Webb had spent his rookie season as a third-round pick in 2017 backing up Arch’s uncle and future Hall of Famer Eli Manning.

As Webb delved into the ins and outs of quarterback play and shared his experience and coaching philosophy, the room was mesmerized.

“He was extremely polished, extremely intelligent, good communicator,” Kilgore recalled recently. “The visual presentation that he provided was incredible. If you’re a former player, maybe things don’t always translate to that (coaching) side so fast.”

They did for Webb, in part, because he and essentially everybody he’s come across in his football playing days knew he one day was going to be a coach. Webb has every game plan since his days playing for his father, Matt, at Prosper High in Texas. In December 2012, Eric Morris was hired by Kliff Kingsbury’s Texas Tech staff. One of his first assignments: Visit Webb, who was committed, about to sign and a month from joining the Red Raiders’ program.

“You could just tell, the minute that I got in there, that he was super confident in what he did and loved ball and was very opinionated,” Morris recalled.

When Webb got to Lubbock, it didn’t take long for the coaching future to show up tangibly.

“He was always a guy that had ideas,” Morris said. “‘Hey, Coach, what if we did it this way? What if we motioned X here? What if we moved formation to the boundary?’

“So you could always just tell, the wheels were always spinning with him.”

Webb, a prolific note-taker and collector of all manner of football ideas, has built a playbook and a plan for himself over many years.

Of course, so, too, has Payton, who still holds the final say in all things Broncos.

What, ultimately, Denver’s offense looks and feels like with Webb at the controls remains to be seen. Some clues have started to emerge, though, and they build on themes that unsurprisingly sound like the stories from those who coached Webb along the way.

He has good, unique ideas of his own and the ability to coach them well, but he also excels in taking already good ideas and shaping them into better ones.

Players in training camp talk largely about tailoring and tinkering. They talk about similar concepts out of a tweaked formation. Same play, but with pre-snap motion. Payton-esque scheme all dressed up with new-school sleight of hand. Streamlined verbiage to facilitate thinking and playing fast.

This, though, is not tinkering for tinkering’s sake. This is a change targeted specifically at making life more efficient for Nix.

Running the football with conviction and regularity is a point of focus, but it would also help keep defenses honest against Nix, who led the NFL in pass attempts last year.

Nix, Payton says, reads defenses quickly. Sometimes too quickly. He might come off his No. 1 read just before that guy is about to become available. Experience and work should help him play with the right pace at the right time, but Webb hasn’t stopped there.

“There were some long hours in the offseason as a passing game staff of really trying to evaluate and watch the last two years of him playing and how does the first read marry up with the second read,” Webb said.

One final factor: The Broncos are giving Nix more game-day freedom in Year 3.

He, in his coaches’ eyes, has earned it.“He’s handling some stuff at the line of scrimmage more than maybe he has in the past,” Webb told The Post. “Taking what we talk about in the QB room out and flying it. He’s grown in so many areas protection-wise, defensive recognition, play understanding.

“I’m really, really satisfied with where he’s at right now.”

Jaylen Waddle should change Denver’s offense substantially��

Josh Allen took major strides in the 2019 season, his second starting for Buffalo.

The club went from 6-10 in his rookie season to 10-6. A roster makeover started to come into focus. Allen’s production jumped, though he still only completed 57% of his passes and accuracy questions lingered around the 2018 first-round pick.

Then, in March 2020, the Bills traded a first-round pick and more to acquire Stefon Diggs from Minnesota.

Diggs isn’t the only reason Allen exploded onto the scene and established himself as one of the best quarterbacks in football in his third season, but he certainly didn’t hurt.

The results were immediate. Diggs in 2020 turned in the best year of his illustrious career, catching 127 balls for 1,535 yards in his first season playing with Allen. Allen finished second in the MVP voting.

Diggs spent four seasons with the Bills and averaged 111 catches, 1,343 yards and nine touchdowns per season.

All of that crossed Webb’s mind back in March when the Broncos finalized a deal sending a first-round pick plus to Miami for Waddle. Just like Payton saw some of his younger self in Webb, Webb saw shades of his football past in the Waddle deal.

“Just seeing the growth from (Allen and Diggs) at that time, there’s some similarities of what started to happen here,” Webb said this summer. “It doesn’t mean it����ap going to. We got a long way to go, but man, (Waddle) is good. I’ve just enjoyed the person and just watching him work. He is a blessing to be around.

“He’s a multiplier. He’s a thermostat.”

The Broncos have known the need since Payton arrived here in 2023. He quickly decided Jerry Jeudy was not the answer. Courtland Sutton is a valuable asset in his own right and has been Nix’s favorite target by far through two seasons together, but he is not a prototypical No. 1.

Waddle is.

The Broncos knew they didn’t need Romeo Doubs or Jauan Jennings in free agency. They eventually learned they could have drafted Omar Cooper at No. 30 out of Indiana. But Denver already had depth. They had quality players at the position.

They needed a ceiling-raiser and they happily paid a premium for one.

They worked on Waddle for months, dating to the trade deadline in November 2025. The tape spoke for itself. They talked with countless people about his makeup and work ethic.

Finally, they got their guy.

He’s been what the Broncos expected and more.

“Obviously, his speed down the field is noticeable but he can win underneath, he can win intermediate and that draws eyes,” Webb said. “You can see it when he’s out there practicing. Other guys are getting touches because he’s drawing attention on him. Whenever they don’t have eyes on him, he’s making plays.

“It allows us to be very versatile and it opens the run game up.”

The window

So much has to go right for a team to win the Super Bowl any given year.

The Broncos found out last winter that, even when all the stars start to align, they can come apart with the snap of a bone.

This is not a classic chips-all-in season where a front office and ownership group throw caution entirely to the wind. Denver has ample cap space and is clearly considering how to smooth the transition to life with Nix post-extension, should that be how the next 12 months play out.

Payton just signed a new five-year deal and says he wants to coach for quite a while yet.

For as good as the Broncos appear to be, they still have questions to answer.

Can they actually run the football better? Can J.K. Dobbins stay healthy a full season for the first time and can the Broncos remain one of the league’s healthiest teams for a fourth straight year? Can Vance Joseph’s defense maintain its high level of play? Can Payton, who seems genuinely excited by Webb’s promise, strike the right balance of “some suggestions, some mandates,” as he described his gameday role in the new play-caller’s ear?

Whatever happens, it is apparent from the starting line that Payton came that close to a Super Bowl appearance last season but came away realizing the offense needed change.

Here it is. A swashbuckling 31-year-old coordinator and an in-his-prime game-changer at receiver who are expected to help lift all boats.

None more than the quarterback.

“He understands how close we were a year ago,” Webb said, “but it was a year ago and we’ve kind of put that in the rearview mirror. We understand how close we were, but this is a brand new season. …

“Now everyone kind of knows we’re a good football team. And we are, but everybody knows it so there’s a new target.”

Bo Nix career stats

Davis Webb bio��

Jaylen Waddle career stats

John Elway will make his “Manningcast” debut for the Broncos-Chiefs game, joining fellow Hall of Famer Peyton Manning. Brother Eli, who remains a candidate for Canton, will be there, too.

But Elway’s first appearance will draw in ����apountry for what Elway and Manning have to say. Both have an intimate knowledge of the Broncos. When it comes to the team’s history, there is Elway and everyone else.

He guided the Broncos to five Super Bowls, winning the franchise’s first two in the 1997 and 1998 seasons behind a star-studded offense that included future Hall of Famers Gary Zimmerman, Shannon Sharpe and Terrell Davis.

With the help of an historically great defense, Manning engineered the Broncos’ last title, taming the Carolina Panthers, 24-10.

The current Broncos open the season with championship expectations, making Elway’s appearance well-timed and even more fascinating.

The “Manningcast” began in 2021, the same year Elway transitioned from head of the Broncos football operations to a consulting role. His last day in that position was March 15, 2023.

While Elway has been removed from the Broncos, he has not been far away. He has long had a good friendship with coach Sean Payton, through many golf outings, leaving him tethered and mindful of the Broncos’ results.

There will likely be questions about Bo Nix. Following Manning’s retirement, Elway struggled to keep the Broncos in contention because a carousel of quarterbacks — from Trevor Siemian to Case Keenum and Joe Flacco — failed to pan out.

Nix represents the 13th starter since Manning, and two playoff berths in his first two seasons have cast him as a long-term solution.

Elway’s thoughts on Nix and the Broncos should make for interesting listening. There should be some barbs as well. Elway and the Mannings have a history of one-liners, and it would be a disappointment if they didn’t rib each other.

Elway is the third former or current Broncos player to appear on the “Manningcast,” joining Sharpe and Russell Wilson.

When looking to amplify self-deprecation and his love for football, the Hall of Famer advanced to blowing up buildings, crawling through air ducts and chasing a helicopter in the reveal of the Manningcast schedule that opens on Monday night with the Broncos at Chiefs.

“The Heist” grew from a desire to change the broadcast dates since one conflicted with Peyton’s book club reading of his old playbooks. He enlisted brother and co-host Eli to break into the NFL offices and change the master schedule on commissioner Roger Goodell’s computer.

Why not just pick up the phone? An annoyed Goodell had long ago started sending Peyton’s calls to voicemail. So, the script with “2 brothers, 40 cameos and 0 clue” came to life.

“Peyton always has the perfectionist mentality. And the mandate is to go bigger and better,” Omaha Productions head writer DJ Gallo told The Denver Post. “This year, there were like six pitches, and we settled on a mini-action movie. Both Peyton and Eli grew up watching a lot of movies. They are all about football. But they definitely know movies, so they liked the idea.”

It was on Gallo to pull it together. The first two schedule reveals worked well — auditions centering on finding a third Manningcast member and Manning the musical filmed at Kent Denver School’s Anschutz Theater — but this represented a bigger undertaking. Rather than seven months, they had a 16-month lead-up.

It provided time and multiple opportunities to add players and coaches at the NFL meetings and Pro Bowl. And it opened up a chance to bring in more Hollywood stars.

“We very much lean on Peyton. Everyone has such respect for him,” Gallo said. “He tells them the idea, how much time we need and they want to participate.”

The Mannings had shown they can turn their dry wit into comedic gold with athletes. This project found its sense of humor from Anne Hathaway as a foul-mouthed getaway driver of a van with the Mannings picture on the side, a bumbling Paul Rudd, too good-looking Jon Hamm and an irritable Larry David.

David delivered perhaps the movie’s best zinger, going full He let Peyton and Eli know their plan stunk — “You forgot the night watchman, what a bunch of blithering idiots!” — and called their commercial presence “ubiquitous.”

Eli thanked him.

“That wasn’t a compliment,” Peyton corrected.

The result is a smooth-moving adventure of follies. It includes father Archie aborting a helicopter rescue.

“We went down to New Orleans for that one, and he is so great,” Gallo said. “We give him the lines and he bangs them out.”

Gallo enjoys working with current and former athletes because they are used to being coached. Spoiler alert: The Mannings, clumsy as they were, succeeded in getting the schedule tweaked to fit Peyton’s needs.

“Monday Night Football with Peyton & Eli” will appear on 11 regular-season games and, for the first time, the Super Bowl.

“These reveals are positive and fun. That is the tone of the Manningcast with athletes, actors and musicians. People who love the NFL,” Gallo said. “We hope these reveals give off that vibe in a different way of what we want the Manningcast to be.”

Head coach Sean Payton officially hired Webb as Denver’s next offensive coordinator, the team announced Monday afternoon. The move comes less than a week after Payton fired offensive coordinator and longtime loyalist Joe Lombardi, setting in motion an offseason of offensive staff changes.

Denver also promoted offensive quality control coach Logan Kilgore to quarterbacks coach.

For weeks, it seemed Webb could have been heading for new pastures. The fast-rising Broncos quarterbacks coach was connected to the Las Vegas Raiders’ head-coaching job since Denver’s playoff bye week in early January, and emerged as a finalist this past week after meeting with them in person Jan. 26. Broncos second-year quarterback Bo Nix even acknowledged as much in an end-of-season conference call with reporters Wednesday.

“I think highly of him,” Nix said on Wednesday. “I know he’s a really good football coach. And I know he’s got a lot in store for him in the future — don’t know what it looks like, a lot of speculation. You never know until it happens.

“But for him, say he was a head coach in the division, I’d enjoy beating his butt two times a year.”

That’s no longer a concern, as the 31-year-old Webb will continue to work hand-in-hand with Nix in Denver. And Webb’s promotion hints he could take over play-calling duties, which would stand as an unprecedented move in Payton’s 18-year career since being named the head coach of the New Orleans Saints in 2006.

A source with knowledge of the situation told The Denver Post that there’s nothing in Webb’s OC deal that stipulates he’ll take over play-calling duties from Payton, and staff haven’t made a concrete decision if he’ll actually assume that role. But Webb had standing interest from the New York Giants, Baltimore and Philadelphia for their respective offensive-coordinator positions and play-calling duties, leaving little reason he’d stay on the Broncos’ staff for a simple title change.

When asked about Las Vegas’s interest in Webb last week, too, Nix discussed Denver having a “play-caller” — but didn’t specifically mention Payton.

“I know everything is all going to work out,” Nix said on Wednesday. “The season’s going to get here. We’re going to have an OC, we’re going to have a play-caller, we’re going to have our team. And we’re going to go out and try to beat our opponents.

“But just me speaking on him, he’s an awesome coach, going to be an awesome — in whatever role he’s in, he’s going to do great things.”

In October, Payton was asked on a conference call if he’d considered transferring play-calling duties — even for a brief period — to another member of his staff.

“I think we’re comfortable as an offensive staff of how we’re operating,” Payton said.

But after a season of inconsistent offense in Denver (14th in the NFL in points in the regular season), Payton has been particularly introspective in recent weeks. He cautioned himself against getting too conservative as a play-caller before Denver’s divisional win against Buffalo. He immediately allowed for self-second-guessing after a failed fourth-down call in the Broncos’ AFC title-game loss to the Patriots. Payton said Tuesday that “those are the moments you wish you had back,” although he deflected any notion he felt pressure for the call.

“I don’t pay attention to all the criticism,” Payton said. “I think if I paid attention to that, I don’t know that we’d ever be in this position.”

Hours later, though, the first domino fell in an early offseason of rapid staff changes for the Broncos. Payton fired Lombardi on Tuesday, after Lombardi had served for three years as Denver’s offensive coordinator and served under Payton as an assistant for 11 previous years in New Orleans. Payton also fired receivers coach Keary Colbert. Then, on Friday, Pete Carmichael — a senior offensive assistant in Denver who’d been Payton’s offensive coordinator for 12 years in New Orleans — left the Broncos for the Bills’ offensive-coordinator job.

With the Raiders closing in on Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, Webb pulled himself out of the running for the Raiders’ head coach job. Denver interviewed Buffalo quarterbacks coach Ronald Curry and Commanders passing-game coordinator Brian Johnson in compliance with the NFL’s Rooney Rule, but were always centered on Webb as a top candidate.

Webb, who has never before called plays in an NFL regular-season game, was hired in 2023 as Payton’s quarterbacks coach immediately after a six-year NFL career as a backup QB. In August, though, he sparked buzz in assuming play-calling duties for the Broncos’ 27-7 preseason win over the Cardinals.

“I had thrown a couple of call sheets or stat sheets from my first time and highlighted a few things and said, ‘See if you can beat this,’” Payton said after that game.

“And he did.”

Webb drew such rave reviews for his work in the Denver quarterbacks room that No. 3 quarterback Sam Ehlinger turned down multiple other contract offers throughout the season in part to continue developing under Webb.

Webb has spent time around a series of terrific quarterbacks and unique offensive minds, from backing up Patrick Mahomes in college at Texas Tech to backing up Eli Manning and Josh Allen in the NFL. He’s learned from Air Raid evangelist Kliff Kingsbury to a West Coast-rooted, old-school program in Payton.

Asked about Webb’s ability to lead a locker room as a head coach, Ehlinger said he recognizes Webb has never coached a bigger group than a quarterback room, but didn’t think leading a larger organization would be an issue.

“Any time you’re the quarterback of a large college program and you also get meaningful snaps with an NFL organization, you’re in a position of leadership whether you like it or not,” Ehlinger said. “So he definitely has experience from a leadership standpoint in a locker room with football players and organizations. As a coach, he’s been leading our room. So he’s developed skills there, too.”

He’ll now experience a dosage of it in Denver as Payton’s OC, Webb’s latest endorsement in a rapid ascent.

Ehlinger said he, like many around the league, is interested to see what Webb’s style as a play-caller looks like in regular season games, whenever that time arrives.

“You kind of have to be in that situation when the pressure is on and the bullets are flying to really develop that signature,” Ehlinger said. “I think he’ll have a unique mix of kind of new-school, Air Raid, attacking style. But also be able to balance the run game with all that he’s learned here from Sean and his experience in Buffalo. I’m curious to see what that becomes.”

Kilgore spent the past three seasons with the Broncos in an offensive quality control role, but Payton and the Broncos have been bullish on his talent. The 35-year-old worked primarily with tight ends and returners in his previous role, but played quarterback in college at Middle Tennessee State. Then he spent an offseason with Payton in New Orleans as an undrafted free agent before getting into coaching. Kilgore was coaching tight ends at Arkansas State when Payton was hired as Denver’s coach in early 2023 and called him to join the staff.

Moving him up from a QC job to being the day-to-day man in front of Nix is a big affirmation from Payton and a major step up for Kilgore.

Kilgore and Webb together are central parts of a revamped, substantially younger offensive meeting room around Payton.

“I don’t like the storyline with Jarrett Stidham,” he told me as we shivered on the second-floor deck at Jackson’s LODO early Saturday night.

Then he corrected himself.

“I hate the storyline,” Grant continued, adjusting his bright blue Bruschi replica Patriots jersey.

“Why?” I wondered.

“Because we drafted him. And he gave us two years and then he left. And now he’s, like, the guy who’s coming in. I just don’t like the storyline.”

New England rolls an MVP-caliber quarterback into Denver — only to get beaten by a Broncos backup? Justin’s seen the movie before. He always ends up crying at the end.

The last time Grant, who calls Colorado Springs home but grew up in Maine, saw his beloved Pats at Empower Field was November 2015. When Osweiler rallied the Broncos past Tom Brady in the snow.

Talk about your classic PTSD — Pats Traumatic Stress Disorder.

“I’m 0-and-1, man,” Grant laughed on the eve of the AFC Championship between the Broncos and Patriots. “We don’t have a good record here.”

Sure don’t. The Pats are tied with the Steelers for the most Super Bowl victories (six) since the AFL-NFL merger of 1970. But they’ve never won a postseason game in Denver (0-4). Brady went 0-3. Empower Field was the one mountain too high for even the GOAT to climb.

“Honestly, man, after losing two Super Bowls to Eli Manning and one to Nick Foles,” Grant’s friend Jordan Buck, a Pats fan from Lakewood, told me, “I’m not overlooking anybody. But you’ve got to be confident in your squad, so I like my team’s chances.”

Love them, though?

Not after Osweiler. Or Foles. Or Eli twice.

“Yeah, (Stidham) hasn’t played in a long time,” Buck shrugged. “But I mean, he played for us for three years, so he knows us well.”

What did Broncos fans and Pats fans have in common Saturday? Stidham, who’ll make his first postseason start against New England in place of injured Broncos QB Bo Nix, was on the lips of both teams’ fans the hours before the biggest football game at Empower Field in a decade.

New Englanders packed into Jackson’s LODO for a pep rally just within shouting distance of Coors Field. Most of the shouts were distinctly of the NC-17 variety.

“I LOVE DRAKE MAYE!” a Patriots fan cried.

“(EXPLETIVE) THE BRONCOS!” Another screamed.

The “Night Before” rally was a brainchild of the Pikes Peak Pats fan club. PPP typically hosts a night-before primer on the eve of an AFC title game in Denver, but it’s been a while. January 2016 brought roughly 700 Front Range Pats fans together. PPP president Anne Stone told me they were expecting at least 1,000 this time around — if not more. With the sun setting and temps falling at 5:15 p.m., a line of at least 100 patrons was seen snaking out from the front door of Jackson’s and around the block.

Near the DJ stage on the second floor, the Patriots’ “All-Access” ��television show did a live shoot for the locals back in Beantown. Pat Patriot danced in one corner. A giant ice sculpture of the New England logo rested in another. Former New England kicker Adam Vinatieri, the Patriots’ honorary captain for Sunday, showed up for his “All-Access” cameo as faithful waved tiny cardboard heads of New England rookie tackle Will Campbell.

“We all we got?” Vinatieri asked.

“We all we need!” they cried.

“We all we got?” Vinatieri repeated.

“We all we need!”

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Vinatieri said.

It’s OK to roll your eyes. But not at the cause. PPP ran a raffle during the rally on Saturday, with a plethora of signed Pats items, in order to raise money for the

As a Boston native, Stone’s accent is thicker than chowdah, bless her, with a laugh that lilts like a fly ball onto Lansdowne Street. She moved to the Front Range 30 years ago when her husband got a new gig — and never left.

The Pikes Peak Pats Club started in 2006. Stone became president a year after that. PPP counts about 90 active members now. Before the pandemic, it was closer to 400. Things are more transient now, with East Coast military transplants looking for a good watch pah-ty coming and going as Uncle Sam ships them in and out of the Springs.

“It’s good,” Stone said. “You get to meet new people all the time.”

Pats owner Robert Kraft has even visited PPP tailgates and parties over the years, although he wasn’t on the guest list for Saturday’s rally.

And if Stone’s got any PTSD, deep down, she sure as heck wasn’t showing it.

“To tell you the truth, in all honesty, I think a lot of people, all of my Pats friends, everyone’s hearts are broken for poor Bo Nix,” Stone said. “Some of us are old enough that he could be our son. Here was a 25-year-old who spent the night crying. It’s just awful.”

A pause.

And cue the “but” …

“That being said, I don’t think we’re a shoo-in,” Stone continued. “I do think we’re going to win. That’s my gut reaction. You know what they say: ‘Any given Sunday.’ It’s true. And we don’t have good luck (in Denver).”

Oh and four.

As in, uh-oh and four.

“That worry you?” I asked Grant.

“Yes, it does,” he replied. “It worries me a lot.”

He just wishes Stidham would stop giving him that old Osweiler vibe.

“So hopefully,” Grant said nervously, “history doesn’t repeat itself.”

Stiddy as you Bo, man. Stiddy as you Bo.

Denver’s quarterback coach and passing game coordinator is, according to several whispers from Broncos types to The Grading The Week (GTW) staffers, a star-in-the-making.

Look,, let alone help them to go 24-10 together in the regular season, you ought to be up for the Nobel Peace Prize — never mind the vacant head-coaching gigs with the Raiders or Ravens.

Multiple reports have indicated the 30-year-old Webb has interviewed for both the Baltimore and Las Vegas jobs, by the way. Which is, at face level, a heck of a jump for somebody who’s never even been an NFL coordinator before.

Then again, Webb isn’t just “somebody.” As a player, the dude ran with Patrick Mahomes and Baker Mayfield as a college QB at Texas Tech and with Eli Manning and Josh Allen as a pro. By his own admission, he’s also a pack rat, an analytics nerd and a teaching wonk — three dubious traits for a husband but three excellent traits for an NFL head coach.

Webb’s play-calling during the preseason raised some eyebrows and made some Broncos fans pine for the young guy to take over the call sheet permanently.

Regardless, he’s a guy on the climb. Unfortunately for ����apountry, so is Jim Leonhard.

Broncos staff being raided by NFL rivals — C.

The 43-year-old former Broncos safety and Wisconsin Badgers star was a coup when Payton and Denver snapped him up before the 2024 season. The ex-Badger was hired as defensive backs coach and defensive pass game coordinator before the 2024 season and was promoted to assistant head coach before this last one. The Broncos fielded one of the top secondaries in football last season, added Talanoa Hufanga as a free agent last spring and got even better in 2025 before injuries hit.

If Vance Joseph leaves Denver for a head-coaching job, a role he’s openly pined to get back to after a decent DC run with Arizona and a brilliant one in Dove Valley, it’s presumed that Leonhard would slide into VJ’s old slot here — assuming the former’s still here, of course. The Cowboys have asked permission to talk to Leonhard, who was highly regarded as a Big Ten play-caller, about being their DC, so the rumor mill over the next few weeks and months could be tricky. Potentially.

Payton’s built an incredible staff here in a short time. But one of the sad, eternal NFL truths is that incredible assistants almost always leave the nest to advance their own careers.

Fortunately, the Walton-Penner Group has shown a willingness to pay and retain good coaches, which is another reason why the Broncos are where they are. With Payton at the helm, Denver could probably afford to lose one of either Webb or Leonhard as the winter carousel looms. But boy, you’d hate to see the Broncos lose both.

Lorenzen’s Rockie Mountain High — C-plus.

Sometimes, desperation on the part of two sides can make for a questionable relationship, although with right-handed pitcher Michael Lorenzen and the Rockies, you wonder. Lorenzen, who’s now likely the Rockies’ No. 2 or No. 3 starter by default, has given up 73 homers since 2022. MLB’s Baseball Savant says he’d have given up only one more dinger (74) pitching most of his games at Coors Field. So that’s good. One of his best weapons has traditionally been a changeup, a decent “out” pitch on 20th and Bleak. More good. He’s also , which, over a season, would’ve ranked him fifth among 2025 Rockies who played in at least 25 games. Give the dude a bat! Why not make Lorenzen Denver’s own Colorad-Ohtani and have some fun with another lost summer in LoDo?

He can feel a moment months ahead through his fingertips.

Or in the way his feet shuffle and settle.

Or the way his hips flip to the exact angle his brain intuited.

In the Alabama summer swelter or under the baking Colorado sun, Nix can be transported from a solo training session to an all-eyes, nationally televised moment deep in the year.

A crisp autumn Sunday at Empower Field or a frigid Christmas night in Kansas City.

“We call it ‘creating future memories,’” Ben Neill, a longtime Nix quarterback trainer, told The Denver Post recently. “Like, when you’re training and you’re on the field and you make this great play and you move and you rip it in there and you just kind of flash in your head, ‘Man, that����ap going to happen in a game this year.’”

Nix created many actual memories during a historic rookie season as the Broncos’ quarterback.

He won the starting quarterback job for coach Sean Payton and almost just as quickly won over the locker room with a combination of confidence, authenticity and playmaking.

He started all 17 regular-season games, generated 34 touchdowns and helped lead Denver to its first postseason appearance in nearly a decade.

Along the way, Nix became a beacon of hope for Broncos fans who have seen a revolving door at the position since Peyton Manning retired. He became the pupil who will make or muddy the second act of Payton’s career and, eventually, his Hall of Fame candidacy.

He became the most recognizable ingredient in a mix of many that put Denver on the map as a contender this fall.

Now the expectations are massive.

So, how did Nix set about preparing to raise both himself and his team to the next level? To elevate himself into the rarefied air Payton thinks he can reach, and also back up his coach’s ardent belief in this team as a Super Bowl contender?

By doing less.

By slowing down, at least in pockets.

By trusting a process he’s never actually followed before, at least not quite like this.

By betting that a move or two he mastered in the thick, southern summer will help Denver when the NFL herd starts getting thinned in December and January.

Nix took what he’s come to believe about himself — that he doesn’t have to be anything other than himself to catch everything he’s after — and put it to work for the first time in a true NFL offseason. He channeled confidence and doubt, familiarity and new methods, laser focus on the moment and a broader sense of where he’s headed and came out of the most unique offseason of his career to date ready to take the Broncos to new heights in 2025.

“There’s this kind of almost in-between mindset of that genuine confidence that, ‘I can play and I can compete,'” Neill said. “But at the same time, ‘I’ve got a lot of improvement to do and a lot of getting better to do.’”

A unique offseason

For all but one team each year, the NFL season ends with blunt force.

One day you’re playing, the next you’re cleaning out your locker.

Nix, who had a minor ankle procedure after Denver’s Wild Card loss to Buffalo and thus was around the team’s facility, had trouble downshifting after playing in 20 games — two preseason, 17 regular season and the 31-7 playoff loss.

“The first couple weeks, you could tell he was still itching,” Broncos quarterbacks coach Davis Webb told The Post. “I was like, ‘No, no, buddy. It����ap done.’

“Now it����ap time to debrief. You need to go to Aspen or Vail for a weekend and then go somewhere else. Get away.”

One of the underrated factors for NFL rookies is the long road they travel before they ever get to playing in a game. Nix’s senior year at Oregon began in August 2023 and didn’t end until January 2024. Then he went straight into draft prep and training for the NFL combine. Meetings, pro day, private workouts. Zoom calls and Payton’s all-nighter quarterback test. Two weeks after the draft, he was at rookie minicamp, beginning the race to try to digest a playbook and win the starting job.

After that came 20 games, transverse process fractures in his back, an ankle injury and the accumulating wear and tear of what amounted to an 18-month sprint.

Nix knew he needed the recovery time. He also, though, knows himself well. He’s wired to always work. Always throw. Always do a little bit more.

He headed himself off at the pass by putting a plan in place well in advance.

When Nix first got drafted, Webb gave him an extensive guide to the NFL that included offseason schedules used by his old teammates and pupils like Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Baker Mayfield and Eli Manning. Webb then reiterated those ideas in a 3-page postseason to-do list for Nix.

The No. 1 thing: “This is your first big boy offseason,” Webb said. “You don’t need to throw 10,000 throws in February and March.”

Nix took some of the advice and then molded it into a schedule tailored to his liking.

“I wanted a good foundation, good ideas, and then I wanted to make it my own,” Nix told The Post. “Do things that I’ve been comfortable with in the past, but understand I’m also new to the NFL, new to the offseason, new to the schedule.

“I wanted to see what other guys had done, what other guys had found success with.”

Nix anticipated that he’d want to push the envelope quickly, but could also feel that he needed the change in pace.

“It was difficult at the beginning because what I’ve always done is just thrown,” he said. “But as I got into it, I felt better, my body felt better, I felt myself getting stronger without throwing. So I just trusted the process and understanding that a lot of other guys around the league use the same process. So seeing that it����ap been done before, I didn’t have to press or wonder if I was doing something that I wasn’t supposed to be doing or overworking.

“Our nature, sometimes you can overwork and you’re not really getting any better. You’re just spinning your tires. For me, it was trusting the guys around me, trusting my plan that I had put in place already, and don’t make any decision out of emotion because of what I want now.”

So often, what Nix wants in the moment is to feel like he’s doing enough.

Sprints. Throws. Playbook study. Nutrition optimization. Leading. Opponent scout. Self-scout. Weights. Film. An NFL quarterback has a broad constellation of disciplines to master before ever thinking about marketing, community involvement or any of the countless other endeavors that fill up a calendar.

None of it can ever be truly conquered. There is always another tendency to sniff out, another set of shoulder strengthening to do, another spin through the rolodex of play calls, checks and signals lurking.

They loom constantly, especially in the relative quiet of the offseason, as reminders that failure could be right around the corner.

“For me, I think it����ap more of the fear of not being ready, not being enough for the team,” Nix said earlier this offseason. “That����ap what continues to drive me.”

Neill calls it “the burden of being hyper-competitive.”

It����ap a common two-way street for high-level performers, but Broncos right tackle Mike McGlinchey says Nix’s ability to navigate the traffic stands out.

“You want to be able to control that to where it����ap not a detriment to you because your greatest strength sometimes, if you’re undisciplined, can become your greatest weakness,” McGlinchey said. “But Bo has handled that line so well.”

Process and processing

Nix throwing less this summer shouldn’t be confused with stasis.

Instead, he continued refining his knowledge of Payton’s playbook. He linked up with former Saints QB Drew Brees, the foremost expert on quarterbacking for Payton, to talk shop and life as the face of a franchise.

The time he spent with Neill at QB Country in Alabama over the course of the offseason zeroed in on the mental side of the game.

“We talked about seeing the field and how the field is made up of individual players who have individual assignments and zones,” Neill said. “But as you get used to seeing certain defenses, you can kind of start seeing the big picture of the defense instead of seeing individual players. That����ap an area of improvement that he feels like he’s growing in and made but wants to keep going. …

“Mentally, he knows the stuff, he knows the offense, he knows the defenses, and he knows how to put the pieces together. It����ap just a matter of seeing the big picture so you can see it faster.”

That����ap been the book on Nix so far through training camp and the preseason.

He didn’t show up with overhauled mechanics or a big weight change or more horsepower on his fastball.

Instead, the change is about tempo. It’s about feel.

“In and out of the huddle, you can see how good it is compared to what we’ve had,” general manager George Paton told The Post this summer. “He was good last year with it, but just accelerating those things will be huge for his growth.

“He’s mastering that, and he’ll grow and build off that. It’ll be fun to see where it goes.”

Nix, though, still ventures too far into perfectionist mode sometimes.

“He’s got to fix some of his self-talk. That����ap part of my deal with him,” Webb said. “But yeah, he cares, and that����ap awesome. You’d rather have it that way than the other way. Everyone struggles with that at some point; all athletes do, whether it be self-talk or being too hard on yourself.”

Webb tells Nix frequently, “I’m not going to be thinking about this when I go to bed, so you shouldn’t, either.”

The paradox: That trait isn’t far removed from one that those who know Nix best say makes him special. One of his true superpowers.

Once Nix does something, feels something, makes a correction on something, he’s got it locked away. Period.

So one play, he might be cursing himself out for a mistake, but then the next might generate a future memory.

“He can dial it in and put it in his library for later,” Webb said. “We’ll talk about it enough to where there’s a cue or a word with that play that he can quickly come back to it, good or bad. The bad ones are fun because that never leaves your brain, but that can be in a good way.

“You already lived the worst, so you’re ready for the next.”

The leap

What����ap next for Nix?

Payton sees his quarterback’s trajectory arcing toward the stratosphere.

He had no qualms telling Yahoo Sports he thinks the No. 12 overall pick in the 2024 draft will be in the “top four or five” among NFL quarterbacks in the next two seasons.

Of course, there are four quarterbacks in the AFC alone who are on Hall of Fame tracks in Mahomes, Allen, Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson and Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow. That����ap before defending Super Bowl champion Jalen Hurts in Philadelphia and Washington’s rookie of the year Jayden Daniels, Los Angeles Chargers stalwart Justin Herbert and any number of other talented signal-callers.

Asked to defend that ground recently, Payton pointed to Nix’s preparation and work ethic and said, “There’s not one specific thing. I think he’s wiser to red zone, wiser to third down, the cadence. There are some nuances that, when you get real comfortable — maybe in Year 1, your snap count is this, and then pretty soon it����ap more of a weapon.

“A number of things like that.”

Neill sees the possibility, too. He said the first time he worked out with Nix years ago, the thought crossed his mind that this could be an all-time great player. There are countless factors that can break in countless directions, but one worth hanging the future of a franchise on.

“I think if you had to nail it on one thing that gives Bo the ability and probably gives Sean Payton the confidence that he’ll improve in all of those things, it����ap his mentality,” Neill said. “… He takes it that seriously and he works that hard. He has that Tom Brady mindset. I can see Bo eating avocado ice cream one day.

“He’s not going to do anything that would jeopardize the success that he wants to have, and he’s going to not leave any stone unturned. If he thinks something can give him a competitive edge, he’s going to do it.”

Now the question is how fast that translates on the field.

Webb’s theory: For most quarterbacks, the biggest difference between Year 1 and Year 2 is consistency.

“Then Year 3, in my opinion, is more of a player jump,” Webb said. “That����ap just my experience personally and with my friends. Everybody talks about Year 2, but I think that����ap just the world rushing like we do with everything. We have seen Year 2 jumps, but Rich Gannon’s was at 36 (years old). So everyone’s different. It depends on the situation you’re in, the village you’re around, the play-caller, your defense playing good, your o-line’s protecting you, guys are catching it and you’re executing. There’s a lot of domino effect there.

“I think (Nix) is doing good for his Year 2 development, and then next year will be another set of teaching that we’re not going to worry about right now.”

Webb is big on “the village.” He thinks far too much is made about the quarterback himself. But he’s been around a lot of franchise-carriers, too. He knows what it looks like.

“The great ones are consistently good every year,” Webb said. “So this is Bo’s first opportunity to go back-to-back and grow. His first year, it was great for his first year. But there’s still some things he can work on.”

Nix has a lot going for him.

A good village. Terrific defense. Veteran offensive line. Stability in the coaching ranks.

Not every young quarterback has it so nice. Two of Nix’s fellow 2024 first-rounders, No. 1 pick Caleb Williams in Chicago and No. 3 pick Drake Maye in New England, are already on their second head coaches. No. 8 pick Michael Penix, Jr. in Atlanta only started the final three games of last year, and No. 10 pick J.J. McCarthy in Minnesota missed his whole rookie year due to injury.

Nix, like 2024 No. 2 overall pick Daniels in Washington, leads a team that had no idea exactly what to expect a year ago and now finds itself getting Super Bowl buzz.

Village or not, that comes with remarkable pressure.

The Broncos’ rookie quarterback window is open.

The roster is stacked.

The conference is, too, but teams don’t get long runways in this league.

Can Nix take his game to the next level?

“I’ve got a lot ahead,” Nix said. “A lot to learn from. A lot to transition to. I’m just excited. It����ap a great opportunity, and I’m really excited about where I’m at right now.

“I think Year 2 will be a lot of learning again, but it will be a lot more fun.”

In 1983, Jack Elway advised John to refuse to play for the Baltimore Colts, owners of the No. 1 overall pick. The Elways were wary of hard-driving Colts coach Frank Kush and maintained a dim view of Baltimore winning a Super Bowl. With the help of John’s professional baseball leverage from the New York Yankees,they strong-armed a trade to the Broncos.

In 2004, Archie Manning told Eli to consider not going to the San Diego Chargers. It had not exactly been a fertile ground for developing young quarterbacks Ryan Leaf and Drew Brees. Eli shared similar concerns, so he became the first 23-year-old millionaire to not want to live in San Diego.

Why bring this up now? Because of the echoes in Colorado.

Every 21 years, a father knows best. Deion Sanders has served as a mentor for Shedeur since his Pop Warner days. Shedeur was questioned about his dad’s influence over the draft process while attending the East-West Shrine Bowl this week.

“I didn’t know your parents being involved and wanting the best for you is a problem,” Sanders said.

It is not. Because of what Jack and Archie did, you should have no issue with what Deion might do.

Accusations of “Daddy Ball” and “helicopter parent” have followed Sanders since he decided to coach Shedeur and Shilo. It has not been without controversy, whether it was the coach throwing offensive linemen under the bus or one son (Shedeur) avoiding consequences for throwing late in a game and another (Shilo) throwing his body late into receivers.

In this case, however, Shedeur has a point. A parent helping can be a good thing. Especially when that parent is Deion. He is a Pro Football Hall of Famer. He knows people. And he knows people who know people. So why shouldn’t he provide advice?

I fully support it.

But Shedeur does not need it, at least not publicly. He can handle his business. He made this clear during an NFL Network sideline interview this week when explaining a FaceTime interruption during his meeting with the Tennessee Titans, owners of the draft����ap top pick.

“The thing was my dad was calling me. That was the funniest,” Shedeur said with a laugh. “You know, he has separation anxiety. I said, ‘Pops, it����ap over with. It����ap time for me to soar.’ The coaches enjoyed that.”

Does that mean Deion should have zero concerns about Shedeur going to the Titans and Browns? Heck no. The Titans have not developed a star since Steve McNair, and Cleveland is to quarterbacks what Spinal Tap is to drummers. Since 1999, the Browns have used 40 starting quarterbacks, and they are hoping the highest-paid QB in franchise history — Deshaun Watson — never plays for them again.

If Deion tells Shedeur to avoid Cleveland, who would blame him? Thus far, Deion does not seem to have an issue with the Titans or Browns. But if he does, I would suggest he do it in private rather than allow the cameras to record his thought process for Amazon or anyone else.

Deion also must understand that steering his son is fraught with more danger than his predecessors. Simply put, Shedeur is not John Elway or Eli Manning. He is a solid prospect with a high football IQ who throws a beautiful ball. There are more than a few NFL scouts who insist Sanders would not have been drafted before any of the first-rounders a year ago, a list that includes the Broncos’ Bo Nix.

Elway is considered the greatest quarterback prospect ever. Manning was viewed as a can’t-miss pick because of his game and name.

It is more complicated for Shedeur. Take off the horned headband and you can see his flaws. He holds onto the ball too long, takes too many sacks and does not possess physical size that widens eyes. If you don’t realize the first two things are a concern, you did not watch Caleb Williams’ rookie season. It is why most mocks have Miami’s Cam Ward getting picked before Shedeur.

The young Sanders got here through his excellence at Jackson State and CU. He is tough and smart. Tell people that his dad protected him, and they get angry and defensive. But it is not wrong to wonder how Shedeur will take to pro coaching.

For all the hand-wringing about Shedeur’s future, he believes everything will work out. In his mind, he is headed to the New York Giants, who have the third pick and a ready-made favorite target in Malik Nabers.

If I had to guess today, he is not wrong. If Deion wants to drop hints behind the scenes that Tennessee and Cleveland don’t make sense, have at it. It is better for Shedeur to wind up with the Giants, Raiders or Jets.

But Deion should know this: He has prepared his son well. Shedeur no longer needs a bodyguard, just an Uber to whisk him around Manhattan.

They counted in the fourth quarter of a Week 6 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, sure. But did they mean anything?

The Broncos coach scoffed at the notion that night at Empower Field.

“Let����ap be honest: It picked up when we started going up-tempo. And when you’re behind, then you’re getting an entirely different coverage look,” Payton said minutes after his team fell to 3-3.

The Broncos had been shut out into the fourth quarter before turning a 23-0 deficit into a 23-16 final count. Bo Nix entered the fourth quarter 4-of-14 passing for 27 yards, a sack and a bad first-quarter interception — reminiscent of the minus-7 he had in the first half two weeks earlier at the New York Jets — and had no answers for the Chargers’ defense.

If Payton discounted the frantic final frame, though, his 29-year-old quarterbacks coach politely disagreed.

In fact, Davis Webb now points to it as the moment he knew Nix had the goods to lead the Broncos on a run.

Since the day Nix was drafted, Webb has been his NFL sherpa. They’re together every day on the field and in the meeting room. When they’re not in one of those two spots, they’re texting ideas and questions, plans and plays, corrections and encouragement, regardless of the hour.

Webb’s been confident in Nix from the start and programmed his whole coaching arsenal specifically for the rookie.

In this moment, though, the young coach was frustrated.

“We were down and we were not moving it,” Webb recalled this week. “I think I said something to him and it probably wasn’t very nice.”

Nix didn’t pout or shout back. He made his point on the field instead.

“He made probably five plays in one quarter alone that I only know of two other people who could have done that,” said Webb, who backed up Patrick Mahomes at Texas Tech and then Eli Manning and Josh Allen in the NFL. “I knew it, right then and there. …

“And then he got on a little streak.”

Indeed he did, and so did his team.

Starting with that fourth quarter, Nix played Denver’s final 11-plus games to a 105.8 quarterback rating. He completed 69.6% of his passes and threw 26 touchdowns against seven interceptions.

The Broncos won seven of their final 11 games, didn’t lose at home after that day and made the playoffs for the first time since the 2015 season.

Nix, of course, is a big reason why. He is not the only one, though. In fact, after he caught fire against L.A., the rookie became just the latest in a long line of successful moves the Broncos made between the end of a drama-filled 2023 season and a promise-filled 2024 campaign.

A centerpiece, to be sure, but one of many critical players acquired by Payton and general manager George Paton that fit neatly into the Broncos’ puzzle and helped turn a rebuild into a playoff contender in a few short months.

Cap hazard

Of course, none of that could have been predicted when the Broncos officially released quarterback Russell Wilson in March.

At that time, it was difficult to overstate the number of questions that existed on the roster.

They had no answer at quarterback.

They had a defense that ended up ranked near the bottom across the board outside of a mid-2023 turnover barrage.

They had cut loose veterans like Randy Gregory and Frank Clark and turned to a young group that at times looked up to the task but also struggled.

They didn’t have much cap room to work with and they knew that getting rid of Wilson meant swallowing the largest dead salary cap charge for a single player in league history.

They allocated $53 million of Wilson’s $85 million in dead cap — guaranteed money that teams have not yet put on their salary cap books — on the 2024 ledger.

Add in charges for Gregory, Clark and a host of others, and Denver faced the prospect of trying to contend with more than a third of its cap space chewed up by players no longer on the roster.

“Sometimes those types of challenges, you roll up your sleeves,” Payton said this week. “I think your players certainly do have a little bit of a chip when they see those initial prognostications or whatever. Then eventually, when you’re in this long enough, you tune that stuff out because half those people don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.

“Who’s done this before with over $80 million dead? No one’s done that before. Let����ap be the first one.”

The Broncos aren’t completely in uncharted territory. While they do have the largest raw number of dead cap charges — right around $90 million, according to OvertheCap and — of any playoff team in history, the percentage of cap room dedicated to dead money is slightly behind the Los Angeles Rams last year.

They were well aware of that success and the way three other teams managed to make the playoffs with big dead cap totals in 2023, as well.

“We’re hoping to follow the same model,” Paton told The Post during training camp, noting that all four — the Rams, Green Bay, Philadelphia and Tampa Bay — still managed to get quality quarterback play.

That trend continued this year.

Six of the 10 teams carrying the most dead cap qualified for the playoffs, while only three teams in the bottom 10 made it.

“My takeaway has been that dead money shows that a franchise takes risks, which is good in the NFL,” OvertheCap founder Jason Fitzgerald . “And (it) sometimes forces a team into getting younger, which is also good.”

If you’re carrying a lot of dead cap for a year or two, Fitzgerald surmised, you might just be doing necessary roster overhaul. If you’re consistently near the top of the list for the 3-5-year range, then you’re probably just making too many mistakes.

In the Broncos’ case, the decision to admit their mistake and move on from Wilson was bold — the team paid him $39 million this year and Pittsburgh paid him only $1.21 million — and ultimately successful.

Puzzle pieces

Jettisoning Wilson and other veterans also boxed the Broncos in during free agency, however. They had a little room to work with but had to push money down the road to create enough to make even modest moves.

One year after shelling out $128 million guaranteed on the first day of free agency, the Broncos last offseason were forced to take a different approach. They finished No. 29 in free-agency spending,

“It was the idea that we’d all like to go out and shop for ‘X’ number of groceries, but we’re going to have to go down a different aisle,” Payton said.

Turns out, the Broncos still managed to find plenty of ingredients, particularly on defense.

In 2023, Vance Joseph’s group couldn’t stop the run and was inconsistent rushing the passer. A bad combination.

Then in the spring, the Broncos released the heartbeat of that unit in longtime safety Justin Simmons.

Paton and Payton went to work retooling via free agency.

They signed safety Brandon Jones, defensive lineman Malcolm Roach and inside linebacker Cody Barton to modest deals. During the NFL draft, they traded a future sixth-round pick for John Franklin-Myers and quickly signed him to a reworked, two-year deal worth $15 million.

Those four players could not have fit Vance Joseph’s defensive group much better.

Jones led the team in tackles, logged three interceptions and finished the regular season with the third-highest Pro Football Focus grade among safeties in the NFL.

Roach and Franklin-Myers transformed Denver’s defensive line from one of the league’s worst into one of its best.

“I tell people all the time: JFM is the best 3-technique I’ve ever played with,” outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper told The Post. “Malcolm Roach brings a different type of energy and juice that����ap rarely like any teammate I’ve ever had. Having those guys on our team and what they’ve been able to accomplish and help us to this year, it����ap been irreplaceable.”

Barton took over calling the defense when Alex Singleton tore his ACL in Week 3 and has played 91% of Denver’s snaps.

The quartet of additions counts $13.63 million on the Broncos’ salary cap this year. The team saved $14.5 million when it released Simmons.

“They did an awesome job,” safety P.J. Locke said of the Denver front office. “I don’t know what else to say about it. They did a great job going out and getting the guys that we exactly needed.”

The results have been obvious.

Denver’s ranked near the top of the league in most defensive categories. The Broncos are solid against the run, they’re among the most difficult teams in the NFL to throw the ball against, they led the league in sacks by a wide margin, and they’re stingy in the red zone.

Built to last

A year ago this week, Payton wouldn’t even entertain the idea that the Broncos had set a foundation to build on.

He knew the quarterback change was coming. He knew several veteran players didn’t fit what he wanted. He knew it felt like his team had a long way to go just to find the starting line.

A partial list of what he didn’t know:

• Whether he’d find a quarterback in the draft or free agency that he loved

• Who would start at cornerback opposite Pat Surtain II

• Where a consistent pass rush might come from

• Who would play with Zach Allen and D.J. Jones on the defensive line

• Who would play center in the middle of an expensive offensive line

When the Broncos arrive in Buffalo for their first playoff game in nine years, they will do so as a group that����ap answered all of those questions and more and done it, improbably, in one lightning bolt of an offseason.

First the series of shrewd signings. Then the Nix pick. The JFM trade. Second-year surges from cornerback Riley Moss and receiver Marvin Mims Jr. A litany of guys playing the best football of their careers, from cornerstones like Surtain and right guard Quinn Meinerz to a rising star in Nik Bonitto, to veteran receiver Courtland Sutton. And a pair of guys who played their way into in-season extensions in Cooper and left tackle Garett Bolles.

They have their entire offensive line under contract for 2025. Their defensive core, except for Barton and defensive tackle D.J. Jones, is intact, too.

They have an easing — although still real — cap burden related to Wilson in 2025 and then are in the clear in 2026. They have needs and more tough decisions ahead.

They have Nix.

They think they have a puncher’s chance against the Bills. Whether the season ends Sunday or further on down a surprise postseason run, they know they’ve got a future that looks, after years of darkness, quite bright.

“I love it,” Cooper said Thursday, fresh out of any more ways to describe the past 10 months. “I love this team for real, man.”

2024 NFL dead money leaders

2024 playoff teams in bold | Source: Spotrac

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Bang for the buck

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Keeler: They’ll both be gone before pick No. 4, my friend. I just can’t entirely convince myself that they’re bound for Tennessee, which has the top pick, or Cleveland, which selects second. It’s a classic CU quandary: Coach Prime wants his son or Hunter to go No. 1. I’m not sure he’s particularly enamored with the idea of Shedeur in Nashville, though — or anyone from the family landing with the Brownies. The former’s had the Giants on the brain for weeks, even to the point of that featured the G-Men’s famous blue-and-red logo. Titans coach Brian Callahan is a good guy with a strong pedigree. Shedeur’s got what he needs. I’m just not sure Nashville’s got what the Sanders family wants as a marketing destination.

Renck: The Titans and Callahan, a former Broncos assistant, face an interesting decision. They need an adult at quarterback after Will Levis showed he is more well-versed in than a blitzing defense. But does Tennessee like Sanders enough to take him first? Projections already have them selecting Miami’s Cam Ward. A strong case could be made for taking Hunter as the best player available and then chasing a quarterback next season. Hunter, though, wants the opportunity to play on both sides of the ball. Would the Titans agree to this? They would be stupid not to.

Keeler: Hunter is two Pro Bowl players for the price of one, the perfect gift for a franchise that needs … everything. The Titans and Browns certainly fit that bill. But in a QB-coach league, nothing moves the needle the way landing the right QB1 does. Just ask the Broncos, who got it right with Bo Nix on, what, the 12th try? 13th? Callahan worked wonders with Joe Burrow in Cincy. I’d bet he’s looking for a Runway Joe of his own, and Shedeur can already make the throws Burrow had to learn as an NFL rookie. The Titans are taking a QB at No. 1 — or trading out of that slot to a team Shedeur and the Sanders family want to play for and using that leverage to stockpile picks. It wouldn’t shock me if this whole thing takes a few Eli Manning twists.

Renck: Of the top three teams, my educated guess is Sanders would prefer, in order, the Giants, Titans and Browns. While the glory of going first overall is cool, the NFL is about finding the right fit. Sanders’ best chance at success lies in New York with coach Brian Daboll — his job is safe — and receiver Malik Nabers, who already has a friendship with the former CU star. I can see Deion pulling strings behind the scenes to prevent Shedeur from going to the quarterback graveyard that is Cleveland. And I wouldn’t blame him. But let����ap be fair. If Shedeur wants to position himself to get to the Giants, he must show he can adapt to the NFL and function without his father as his coach. Very few quarterbacks have been sacked as many times as he was in college — we all agree he holds onto the ball too long — and prospered at the next level. The Bears’ Caleb Williams provided a “What Not To Do” template this season. The tough part of this scenario? It means it could put Hunter in Cleveland as a full-time cornerback and part-time receiver. Cue the Rolling Stones, “You can’t always get what you want. …. “

Keeler: But if you try sometimes, well, you just might find … you get what you need. Coach Prime has always looked out for his kids’ best interests. And no NFL dad, if they have a vote, is going to let their QB son land in Cleveland. The Giants are the best fit for Shedeur, for all the reasons you cited — plus the market. While Hunter got the Heisman, if the game is to avoid starting your NFL career along Lake Erie, No. 12 might wind up getting the short end of the stick.