He cannot respond to them all, of course. They come in hordes, from men and their wives and girlfriends across the world, people who have been stung with the same shock as he got after a visit to a urologist three weeks ago. It has been a whirlwind, Singleton admitted Wednesday. But he has not gotten swept away. He sees them.
With those messages comes responsibility, the 31-year-old Singleton knows. On his first day back practicing in Denver, weeks after surgery to remove a testicular tumor, a reporter asked him Wednesday: “Do you consider yourself an inspiration?”
The Broncos linebacker smiled, choosing his words carefully, well aware of the impact they could bring.
“It’s kinda not the greatest thing to talk about,” Singleton said, midway through a long response. “People don’t like talking about that area of their bodies, especially men. So, being able to stand here and do that, do I think it’s inspirational? I don’t know.
“But do I think I have a platform that I can share what I’m going through, to make sure everybody else understands that it’s OK, and to go to the doctor, and that early detection is good for you.”
A few weeks after finding out he had testicular cancer, a whirlwind of testing and waiting and more testing, Singleton resumed practicing Wednesday. He tugged back on a uniform with plenty of weight on his shoulder pads. Back as the green-dot signal-caller of this league-altering Broncos defense.
Between the white lines, though, one can let everything go, as Singleton said Wednesday. And the linebacker was simply happy to be back in uniform, a 31-year-old man who still describes himself as “like a little kid in this game.”
“The ACL was enough to appreciate it — I don’t know if I needed this,” Singleton said, chuckling, Wednesday, referring to his comeback from a torn ACL in 2024. “But you definitely appreciate all the little things. And, so, yeah. I love this game. Practice was the best.”
Head coach Sean Payton said the Broncos knew before last week’s bye that Singleton would be cleared for practice during Commanders week. And Singleton now has a real shot to make an appearance against Washington on Sunday Night Football — less than three weeks after announcing a cancer diagnosis — saying Wednesday he was “tracking” toward playing.
“The scans and all of that stuff were important, and when those came back positive, man, the relief, just for Alex — never mind the football player,” Payton said.
Indeed, despite his love for the game, there was a brief stretch where football didn’t matter a lick, as Singleton indicated. He’d talked to doctors about life possibilities, in general. Chemotherapy. Fertility. If he could have more children (he has one daughter, Tallyn).
He still doesn’t like saying the word “cancer” often, Singleton joked Wednesday. He’s still processing the last few weeks. He’s still undergoing testing to continue to make sure the disease hasn’t spread.
In the meantime, he will return to football as an advocate after his life has changed forever.
“It’s gonna be special,” Singleton said of playing again. “The ACL is — you come back from those. Everyone comes back from those now.
“But yeah, not a lot of cancer research on coming back and playing football.”
The Broncos have locked up another key member of one of the best-performing offensive lines in football.
On Tuesday night, Denver agreed to a four-year extension with center Luke Wattenberg, sources confirmed to The Denver Post. It’s a four-year, $48 million extension for Wattenberg, a source confirmed, with $27 million guaranteed.
The deal ties Wattenberg with the New Orleans Saints’ Erik McCoy as the fifth-highest-paid center in the NFL, with an average value of $12 million yearly.
The move comes just a day after head coach Sean Payton told reporters that he and general manager George Paton had spent time before last week’s bye discussing extensions and initiating conversations with a handful of players.
“The key is not affecting the mojo or how your team’s doing,” Payton said. “I’m always sensitive to that, especially when you’re playing well, because sometimes those can be difficult discussions.”
The Broncos clearly moved quick with Wattenberg, whose rookie deal was set to expire after the 2025 season. The crop of available 2026 free-agent centers was fairly slim, and Wattenberg would’ve likely commanded a hefty sum on the open market. Still, Wattenberg’s extension — if signed as a free agent in the offseason — would’ve made him the third-highest-paid center in 2025 free agency, behind the Bears’ Drew Dalman and the Jaguars’ Patrick Mekari.
The 28-year-old Wattenberg has become an integral part of a Broncos offensive front that currently ranks fourth in the NFL in pass-block win rate and ninth in run-block win rate, according to ESPN. Wattenberg won the starting job prior to the 2024 season in his third year in the league, authoring a strong year in pass protection in front of rookie quarterback Bo Nix.
“I think you’re going to see an ascension,” Payton said of Wattenberg during minicamp. “He’s exceptionally smart. I like his frame. He loves football. So I think that first year full-time starting is going to benefit him greatly.”
Wattenberg has started all 11 games in 2025, surrendering 10 pressures and committing eight penalties. The latter figure is second in the NFL among all centers, according to Pro Football Focus.
The deal continues a trend of Broncos leadership locking down its starting offensive line, as Denver has committed major money to the front in front of Nix. Denver inked All-Pro guard Quinn Meinerz to a four-year, $80 million deal in 2024’s offseason, and followed with an $82 million extension for stalwart left tackle Garett Bolles in December.
The Broncos drafted Wattenberg in the fifth round in 2022, after the center played five years at Washington.
But the Chiefs won a small battle that could prove important, in the weeks to come.
A few days after Denver’s landmark 22-19 win over Kansas City, the Broncos quietly maneuvered to try to sign running back Dameon Pierce, a 2022 fourth-round pick by the Houston Texans. After rushing for 939 yards as a rookie, Pierce’s production had slipped for three straight years, and Houston officially cut bait with the 25-year-old on Thursday. Pierce cleared waivers, and the Broncos put a contract in front of him, a source told The Denver Post.
Pierce signed a practice-squad deal with the Chiefs instead.
The choice could be meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but the Broncos’ interest in the 215-pound Pierce makes clear, at the very least, that Denver isn’t completely settled in life on the ground without J.K. Dobbins.
“Thought it was good,” Broncos head coach Sean Payton said of the team’s run-game, after the Kansas City win. “Good enough.”
Good enough might not be good enough during the next six weeks and likely playoff run without Dobbins, the bell-cow back who the Broncos placed on injured reserve Nov. 15 with a foot injury. The Broncos came into that Chiefs matchup ranked ninth in the NFL in rushing at 128.6 yards per game, as Payton often turned to Dobbins in the second half of games when his passing game struggled. They finished with just 21 carries for 59 yards total against Kansas City, and were largely carried by a monster effort from second-year quarterback Bo Nix.
Teams will likely scheme to take away Nix’s weapons in the passing games come January, though — from Courtland Sutton to Marvin Mims — and dare the Broncos to beat them on the ground without Dobbins. At present, there’s a minimal amount of experience and a minimal amount of demonstrated 2025 production in Denver’s backfield.
One key piece on the roster is third-year back Jaleel McLaughlin, who immediately leapt from gameday inactive into a key role as the Broncos’ No. 2 RB against the Chiefs. And one didn’t need much context to sense how much a goal-line touchdown against Kansas City meant to McLaughlin, who blew a few kisses to the crowd in Denver and roared after a ferocious backward push sent him over the plane in the third quarter.
“With Jaleel’s situation, just from the beginning of the season until now – I think he’s handled it very well,” receiver Troy Franklin said Monday. “He stayed ready. And when it came to one of our biggest games of the season so far, he showed up and he did what he needed to do for us.”
That may be just the start for McLaughlin. Third-string RB Tyler Badie’s role wasn’t going to change, cemented as head coach Sean Payton’s third-down back. Rookie RB RJ Harvey has produced in fits and starts this season. McLaughlin wound up earning six carries against Kansas City and two key goal-line reps in the third quarter, and could be in the line for plenty more in the coming weeks.
“Jaleel had a handful of good runs,” Payton said Monday. “I think with the flow of a normal game, he’s going to be important for us in this stretch.”
McLaughlin’s sheer heart, though, won’t carry the Broncos’ backfield for two months. Particularly in short-yardage situations. Denver is now absent a heavier back on the roster. Rookie Harvey is the largest option, at 5-foot-8 and 205 pounds. Badie weighs in at 197, and McLaughlin stands at all of 5-foot-7. Practice-squad stash Deuce Vaughn is 5-foot-6 and 176 pounds.
The Broncos made the decision to bring in Dobbins in the spring to have a veteran presence next to rookie Harvey. Pierce would’ve checked both boxes as a backfield addition, a Houston product in his fourth season who profiles as a more traditional power back.
There aren’t many appealing options floating around the free-agent market. Veteran Zack Moss ran for just 3.3 yards a carry last season before being benched in Cincinnati, and 30-year-old Jamaal Williams ran for 17 touchdowns in 2022 with the Lions but cratered in 2023 and 2024 with the Saints. The Broncos could look at 28-year-old Chris Evans, a former Cincinnati Bengal who they brought in for a tryout this offseason; they could also try to pry Pierce off the Chiefs’ practice squad, but that’d require offering him a spot on the active 53-man roster.
If Denver stands pat, they’ll need considerable inside-the-tackles production from rookie Harvey, who finished with just 30 yards on 11 carries Sunday. And continued change-of-pace juice from McLaughlin. And third-down consistency from Badie.
On Sundays this fall, Robert Bryant and 70-some other inmates at Lancaster Work Camp in Trenton, Florida, gathered in the facility’s dayroom around a 50-inch Samsung flatscreen television. They had to share. They shared everything. They slept in rows of bunk beds with no separation, and took turns using four showers and four toilets that had no stalls and no walls.
But on Sundays, Robert demanded the TV be tuned to whatever game the Denver Broncos were playing. And demanded nobody change the channel. This was his window into his best friend’s journey, some 1,750 miles away.
Pat Bryant and Robert Bryant first met playing youth football in the seventh grade in Duval County, Florida, and have called each other cousin ever since. They are not actually related. Or maybe they are. They’ve never traced the family tree far back enough. But they share the same surname and were raised upon an edict that snakes through the streets of Jacksonville.
“Loyalty,” Robert said on a call with The Denver Post in early November. “Loyalty comes first.”
Pat Bryant has never forgotten that, from Duval County to Illinois to the Broncos, through years fighting the gravitational pull that’s torn apart his inner circle. In March 2022, Robert was arrested for armed robbery and carrying a concealed firearm. Through the four-year sentence that followed, Bryant added money to an online Securus account so Robert could call him anytime. And Robert did.
“He kept me from going insane,” Robert said.
In mid-September, Bryant stood at his locker in Denver, gesturing at his phone. The rookie Broncos wide receiver pulled up his Securus app, and scrolled through several contacts at correctional facilities around Florida. ROBERT BRYANT. WALTER ROSAS. Bryant pointed to his notifications, where a voicemail from the Florida Department of Corrections awaited.
“See, them boys blowing me up right now,” he told The Post.
About eight or nine of his friends from Jacksonville are in jail, Bryant estimated. Sometimes he tries to help them or their families out.
“Every now and then, I’ll probably send about $1500,” he said. “But that (expletive) add up. With six, seven of them boys, that (expletive) add up.”
Bryant trailed off. He mumbled, looking back at his phone.
“That (expletive) add up.”
From the day that Robert met him in the seventh grade, Bryant wanted out of Duval County. Family was the foundation, and football was the vessel. It was easy to “fall into the street life” in Jacksonville, Robert reflected. But the street life had nothing for Bryant, his father, Patrick Sr., said. He tried to bring friends along with him. He begged them to stay straight. Not all of them heeded his words.
In Denver, Bryant has reached heights they all once saw for themselves on the fields of Jacksonville. He caught five passes for 82 yards in the Broncos’ 22-19 win over the Chiefs last Sunday, and he has established a foothold in head coach Sean Payton’s offense.
Bryant has left Duval County behind, but Robert and many others still live through his eyes. Bryant has not let them go, wherever he’s gone.
“This (expletive) like a dream come true,” he said in September. “… I see it as my livelihood. This is how I’m finna feed my family. I gotta do this for a minute. This don’t last forever. My main focus — trying to make some sort of mark, whether it’s on the field, off the field, whatever it is, just leave some sort of mark.
“So when I hang my jersey up, people gon’ remember who I am.”
Pat Bryant (13) of the Denver Broncos takes the field before the game against the Tennessee Titans at Empower Field at Mile High on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
•••
Patrick Bryant Sr. once served as the athletic director of the Police Athletic League of Jacksonville. He spent long days monitoring games on weekends, so his son rarely went straight home after Pop Warner.
The idle hours after Bryant Jr. actually touched a football were often the most fun — he and friends running their imagination across the grass in Duval County.
They invented their own game. The rules were simple. They found an empty Gatorade bottle and tossed it high in the air. Whoever caught it had to run to a nearby gate to score. If they got tackled, though, they had to fling the bottle back into the air.
They called it throw ’em up, bust ’em up.
“I used to throw it, get tackled, throw it up, just keep catching that (expletive),” Bryant remembered. “When I got tired, I’d throw it up. Let somebody catch it. Then, I was gon’ tackle their ass.”
When Bryant put on a helmet, his Pop Warner team often struggled with blocking. Young kids don’t love blocking. Bryant was the exception. He sometimes waddled up to his father and asked if he needed to play center or guard. Then he’d sneak up on someone, and — before it was rendered illegal — throw a mean blind-side block.
The hits always made crowds murmur, Bryant Sr. remembered.
His son was fearless, Bryant Sr. said. But he still needed protection. The Bryants moved into a gated, middle-class neighborhood in Duval County because Bryant Sr. knew his kids — three boys, one girl — knew plenty of other kids who were in gangs.
Bryant had love, stability and friends. His friends didn’t all have the same. So he brought them over to his house. He met Robert in the seventh grade, and Robert still remembers Bryant throwing him a block that sprung him for his first touchdown. Bryant met 6-foot-6, 340-pound tackle Walter Rosas and basketball star Alim Denson, too. The four went on to play football together at Atlantic Coast High in Jacksonville.
“They stayed at our house on the regular,” Bryant’s mother, Louanne Harris-Bryant, said. “They came to visit Pat. But they ended up being surrogate sons to us.”
Everyone was subject to the rules. No drugs. No alcohol. No going to anyone else’s place unless the Bryants knew who, what and where. Any girls who came over had to sit on the couch — with parents in the room.
“So,” Bryant Sr. recalled, “it was no funny business going around.”
Robert still clings to the memories. The four of them in the car after football practice one day, bumping a friend’s unreleased song before dropping Robert off at his house. Singing. Dancing.
“It wasn’t no care in the world,” Robert recalled.
The city’s temptations dragged them out of that car, away from innocence.
“Everybody know how Jacksonville is,” Robert said. “How, people talking crazy, this, that, this, that. You feel like you gotta prove a point. It pull you deeper into the streets.”
Illinois wide receiver Pat Bryant is kissed by his mom after the team’s 23-17 upset win over Kansas after an NCAA college football game Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, in Champaign, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
•••
When Bryant was 13, one of his friends died from gun violence.
Loss, of one kind or another, has piled up since.
Rosas once had FCS and Group of Five scholarship offers, Atlantic Coast football coach Mike Montemayor recalled. He was sentenced to a seven-year prison sentence in 2022, on two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon. Denson was the captain of Atlantic Coast’s basketball team, and grew so close with Bryant that they called each other “twin.” He was sentenced to five years in county jail in 2022, on multiple counts related to grand theft auto and attempting to flee the scene of a crash.
Robert, who’d lost his father at 12 years old, stopped caring about football.
Bryant used to tell Robert that he had to make it for his friends and his dad. They wouldn’t want you to do this, Bryant told him.
“It was a challenge,” Robert said. “Going in one ear, and out the other. I went the whole opposite way. When, I wish — I wish, I should’ve listened to him.”
Montemayor used to tell Bryant: The sooner you leave, the better. Jacksonville would always be Jacksonville, he said. Nothing would change. And Bryant knew football was the exit lane.
He didn’t run much track and field in high school. He didn’t have blazing speed. Eventually, his 4.61-second 40-yard dash at the NFL combine became one of the biggest knocks on him as a prospect. Instead, Bryant honed in on his strengths as a receiver. He started catching 50 balls before and after practices to cut down on drops, Harris-Bryant recalled.
“I surrounded myself around people, like, I shouldn’t have been around,” Bryant recalled. “But I had the courage and the heart to, like – ‘Nah, I’m gonna go a different route.’”
In January 2023, as Bryant was slowly finding his footing in his second year at Illinois, Bryant Sr. sent his son a news story.
Denson had died in prison.
“That really shook him up,” Bryant Sr. remembered. “That shook him up for a while.”
Bryant couldn’t save his friends. He still tried. But he realized how to save himself after he lost his first friend at 13.
“That’s when that hit,” Bryant said when asked about when he knew he wanted out. “Like … ‘Two ways to this (expletive). You’re either gonna be dead, or in jail.’”
•••
In February, Broncos receivers coach Keary Colbert took a seat with Bryant at a table at the draft combine in Indianapolis. Colbert had a standard list of football questions to get through in 10 minutes, the same he asked every player on their first meeting.
They began talking. And talking. They talked about Jacksonville, and Illinois, and life in general. Colbert realized, with 10 minutes almost up, that he hadn’t asked a single question about football. He resolved to schedule a follow-up Zoom with Bryant.
And then they went back to just talking.
“I knew, sitting across from him at that little informal table … I knew he was a dog,” Colbert told The Post. “Like, I can tell he was a dog. You know what I mean? At that point, I knew what he was as a person, as a player.”
Illinois wide receiver Pat Bryant runs the 40-yard dash at the NFL football scouting combine in Indianapolis, Saturday, March 1, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
The personality was infectious, Colbert recalled. The film was, too. The blocking, the toughness and the 6-foot-3 frame jumped out to the Broncos’ staff. All the characteristics of the Sean Payton receiver archetype.
“If they don’t bite when they’re puppies, they generally never do,” Payton said in October. “And so, you saw it.”
It was not easy at first. Payton barked at Bryant multiple times in one open camp practice. He yanked him from one team rep.
That did nothing to his confidence.
In one September practice, Bryant lined up opposite former Broncos receiver Trent Sherfield on special teams and told the 29-year-old veteran that he “wouldn’t get downfield,” as Sherfield remembered.
“Even just at the beginning of training camp, the one thing I realized about Pat,” Sherfield told The Post, “was that he’s not afraid of anything.”
Slowly, Bryant has carved out a role in Payton’s offense by doing the dirty work. He’s told running backs to “find 13” on a block if they want to score, he said with glee after an October game. Bryant has won matchups over the middle with physicality and footwork, despite not possessing breakaway speed, and has racked up 10 catches for 185 yards in his last four games.
It’s just throw ’em up, bust ’em up in Denver. Different time. Different place. Same kid.
“If you’re good at the sport, you gon’ thrive, man,” Bryant said when asked in September about compensating for speed. “If you get to worrying about, ‘What advantage I got’ – I mean, obviously, you watch film. That’s a different story.
“But when you think about advantages and all that, my mindset’s like, ‘Bruh, where we’re going, I’m better than you. I don’t give a (expletive) about no stats. None of that. I’m a better football player than you.’”
Pat Bryant (13) of the Denver Broncos celebrates catching a touchdown pass from Bo Nix (10) during the second quarter against the Dallas Cowboys at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver on Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
•••
On Sunday, Oct. 26, Robert Bryant and the members of Lancaster Work Camp sat in the dayroom watching Broncos-Cowboys on that Samsung. Late in the second quarter, Robert saw Bryant isolate to the left side of the formation. His excitement rose.
Robert watched Bryant burst off the line, beat his man, and haul in a 25-yard ball from Bo Nix for his first NFL touchdown. He watched his friend turn to the crowd at Empower Field and hit the Mile High Salute — a move that instantly made Bryant a fan favorite in Denver.
Across the country in Trenton, Robert started jumping up and down and cheering so fiercely that a correctional officer stepped in.
You’re yelling too loud, Robert recalled the officer saying.
Listen, man, Robert replied. That right there’s my brother. He just scored.
“I’m almost finna cry,” Robert said.
Not everyone picked up when Robert called across his four years in jail. Bryant did. He flipped the camera on video calls and showed his friend around Illinois’ facility.
You almost home, Bryant told his friend. When you get out, come up here.
Rosas cries almost every night now, thinking of Bryant, three years into his seven-year sentence at the Jackson Correctional Institution in Malone, Florida. A year and a half ago, Rosas got into a prison fight and was stabbed 14 times, he told The Post. Family members and Bryant held their breath.
The first phone call he made to Bryant, after a month in solitary confinement, both haunts and galvanizes Rosas. He hears the pain, still, tearing through his best friend’s voice.
What are you doing, bro? I already lost Alim. I thought I lost you, too.
“There’s some times, I’ve felt down in here, man,” Rosas told The Post, his voice trembling over a jail phone. “I wanted to give up so much, man. But I know – I know I can’t do it. For him. I gotta do it for him. Alim already died in here. I gotta make it home.”
Bryant still talks to Rosas almost every day, and the two have made a plan for the 6-foot-6 Rosas to become Bryant’s personal security guard when his sentence is done in 2028. Almost three years after Denson’s death, the 22-year-old Bryant is now the godfather of his old friend’s daughter, too.
“He always told us, like, ‘Man, we good,” Robert recalled. “‘We’re gon’ make it out of here. Just keep playing sports. We gon’ make it.’”
“Sure enough, he made it,” Robert added. “And he ain’t leave nobody behind.”
On Nov. 3 at 8 a.m., Robert Bryant was released from Lancaster Work Camp after successfully completing his sentence. He got home and got his phone.
J.K. Dobbins, your offensive MVP for Weeks 1-10, is lost for the season. You’re replacing those touches by committee from here on out. A dash of RJ Harvey. A smidgen of Jaleel McLaughlin, now your best downhill, between-the-tackles runner by default.
But might we humbly suggest replacing a pinch of Tyler Badie with more pinches of Mims out of the backfield?
Or Mims out of the slot?
Or Mims out of anywhere?
You can fake a run game over the last seven games of the regular season. You know when you can’t fake it? Against Buffalo or Baltimore in mid-January. Even at home with 80,000 Broncomaniacs at your back, screaming to Mile High Heaven.
“(When) I get the ball. I want to make the most out of it,” Mims told me this past summer. “That’s something I pride myself in, is being an explosive playmaker.
“So being a ‘gadget’ guy is a good thing; when someone (ESPN) tells you you’re the NFL’s best at something. It’s something that you kind of raise your ears at … but, yeah, I mean, when I see ‘gadget’ (player) I think, ‘explosive playmaker.’ Whether it’s in the return game, offense, screen game, deep pass, give me the ball. I want to make the most out of it.”
Want to make the most of what’s left of this offense after the bye? Feature more of Mims in it.
The ex-Oklahoma star appeared on 15 snaps against the Chiefs — just 24% of the offensive plays. Fullback Adam Prentice (19 snaps) got more run with the first-team offense against Kansas City than Mims, a two-time Pro Bowl return man.
Yes, some of that was choosing discretion over valor. Mims can’t scare anybody from injured reserve. He’s coming off concussion protocol.
Although by the time the Broncos take the field at Washington on Nov. 30, he’ll be four weeks removed from the ding he took against Dallas on Oct. 26.
No skill player left at Payton’s disposal is as singularly explosive as Mims. And he reminded us all why against KC with another special-teams masterpiece — 101 punt return yards, a new single-game high, and the most by a Bronco since Trindon Holliday’s 121 in 2013. Mims’ 70-yard runback in the first quarter was another career best, putting the defending AFC champions on their heels at the Chiefs’ 21-yard line.
He’s averaging 11.0 yards per touch from scrimmage since he entered the league. Badie is averaging 7.0 yards. McLaughlin is averaging 4.6 yards. If you don’t want to trust your eyes, fine. Trust the math.
Payton knows how to do quirky, how to improvise when injuries wreck his best-laid plans. In New Orleans, he made Taysom Hill the archetype modern “gadget” weapon. The former BYU star became a 6-foot-2 utility piece. From 2019-2023, Hill bounced between tight end, receiver and quarterback, depending on whatever Sean had cooked up. Hill recorded five straight seasons with Payton in which he threw at least six passes, ran the ball at least 27 times, and picked up at least four receptions. Over those years, Hill averaged 456.8 passing yards, 392.6 rushing yards and 150.4 receiving yards per season.
Payton is the NFL’s Baron Frankenstein, the mind of a mad scientist merged with Bill Parcell’s crusty soul. So why does it feel as if the only guy who can truly stop Mims with a head of steam in the open field is his own head coach?
“For me, it’s like a daily race,” Mims continued. “Just going in every day, working hard. Because with me, I’m a big person (about) wasting time. I hate wasting time. I hate when someone wastes my time.”
“That sounds like your boss,” I said.
“If I’m going to go in there and I’m going to lift, I’m going to practice, I’m going to go ahead and give (it) my all,” he continued. “Because at the end of the day, if I’m not giving my all, I’m wasting my own time. What am I even doing here? So that’s been a big thing for me. So I don’t really do goals — just every day, every second, I just want to do the right thing. And then, from that point on, you’ll reap what you sow.”
This team is on the brink of sowing something special. What good is a killer gadget if you leave it on your tool belt every Sunday?
In a game that could live for months in Denver sports memory, the Broncos outlasted the Chiefs 22-19 at Empower Field on Sunday to take pole position of the AFC West.
OFFENSE — B
It’s been a season of stop-and-go for Bo Nix and the offense. In a notable development Sunday, the problem was often not Nix — who’s been heavily criticized for his play the last two weeks — or head coach Sean Payton, who’s been heavily criticized for his play-calling the last two weeks. Wide receiver Troy Franklin had a couple of killer drops in the first half, and Nix was sacked twice on the opening drive.
Nix was in rhythm all game, though, in an encouraging sign for the second-year quarterback’s progress. He connected on two monster deep shots to Franklin and Pat Bryant in the second half, and Nix looked poised both hanging in the pocket and on the move en route to a 295-yard day. And in a final tour de force, Nix orchestrated his fifth game-winning drive of the season with a clutch 32-yard bomb to Franklin, the deep connection finally clicking as Payton’s unit made enough plays to close a monumental win.
DEFENSE — A-
Payton had so much deserved trust in defensive coordinator Vance Joseph’s unit on Sunday that he declined one fourth-quarter holding penalty on the Chiefs to get to a third-and-9 — even though accepting the penalty would’ve set Kansas City back to second-and-19.
That said, playing Patrick Mahomes comes with several degrees of peril. And after a banner first half, Denver’s defense started to sag in the second half. Mahomes aired out a 61-yard bomb for Tyquan Thornton in the third quarter for the longest passing play of the year against Joseph’s unit, and leveraged a rough third-and-20 defensive pass-interference call on Riley Moss for an eventual score to take the lead. But Joseph hung tough, and the Broncos came up with a massive three-and-out stop on a late Chiefs drive to hand the ball back to Payton.
SPECIAL TEAMS — A+
A Darren Rizzi tour de force. Having Marvin Mims Jr. back after a two-game absence for a concussion certainly helped. The Broncos’ All-Pro returner whizzed for a 70-yard punt return in the first quarter to set up a field goal, and Denver’s kickoff and punt units soundly outplayed Kansas City in a key divisional matchup.
Kicker Wil Lutz went 5 of 5 on field goals and made the game-winner in another monumental day, and rookie punter Jeremy Crawshaw got his mighty leg back underneath him with two punts. And in a coaching tour de force, offensive tackle Frank Crum came up with a monumental blocked extra point in the fourth quarter to hold the Chiefs’ lead to 19-16.
COACHING — A-
In a familiar script, Payton couldn’t get out of Payton’s own way early on, orchestrating a fantastic opening drive only to kill momentum with a flea-flicker call from RJ Harvey to Nix that nearly got picked off. And the Broncos’ offensive operation struggled enough that CBS Sports’ Tracy Wolfson reported on the game broadcast that Nix was begging Payton to get play-calls in quicker.
Interesting note here from Tracy Wolfson, who said Bo Nix was “begging” Sean Payton to get a third-down call in faster.
“The offensive line came off and said ‘We need to change the tempo.’”
Evidently, Payton was listening. Or something clicked. Because the Broncos started to play with tempo in the second half, as Nix started dealing on a third-quarter touchdown drive. The ultimate hat-tip here, of course, goes to Joseph, who continued to establish himself as one of the hottest head-coaching names in the business. Mahomes has now accounted for a grand total of three touchdowns in four matchups against Joseph in his second tenure in Denver, and Joseph dialed up one of the gutsiest calls of the Broncos’ season — a third-and-10 nickel blitz from Ja’Quan McMillian to sack Mahomes and stuff the Chiefs on their final offensive drive.
Broncos-Chiefs series: Here we go again. The Broncos endured a long period of futility in this matchup — 16 straight losses from November 2015 to early October 2023 — before finally toppling the Chiefs 24-9 on Oct. 29, 2023. Denver split this series 1-1 last year, drubbing Kansas City 38-0 in the final game of the regular season as the Chiefs rested their starters. The Broncos are 56-73-0 against the Chiefs all-time.
In the spotlight: Can Nik Bonitto and company take down Patrick Mahomes?
On Monday night, the Broncos’ 26-year-old edge rusher stood in a parking lot in Federal Heights, depositing box after box of Thanksgiving meals into the trunks of families pulling through a makeshift drive-thru in Thrive Church.
Bonitto wore a hoodie, sweats and a large black brace on his wrist. He has been wearing the brace since hurting his wrist in the Broncos’ Week 1 opener against the Titans. The splint didn’t much hurt his ability to pick up turkeys. And it certainly hasn’t hurt his ability to gobble up opposing offenses, as Bonitto put together another dominant performance against the Raiders last Thursday with eight pressures and 1.5 sacks.
But the greatest challenge of Bonitto’s career year — first in the NFL in QB pressures (51), third in sacks (9.5) — will come Sunday, when the Chiefs and one of the NFL’s most elusive quarterbacks come to Empower Field.
“That’s the guy that everybody looks to when it comes to sacking the quarterback,” Bonitto said Monday. “He’s one of the best in our game, so, for sure — it’s going to be exciting.”
The Patrick Mahomes of the last three years is not quite the same game-breaker the NFL saw in his mid-20s. He has dropped from the league’s undisputed top quarterback to just arguably the top dog. He lingers tied for 10th in yards per attempt (7.4) and a distant 12th in passer rating (98.2) through 10 weeks. The Chiefs are more vulnerable than at any point since the Mahomes Era began in 2018, sitting at 5-4 and a distant third in the AFC West.
First-round rookie tackle Josh Simmons has missed the last four weeks while dealing with a family matter. Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s unit has been typically excellent but has sagged on third down and in the red zone. And yet, Kansas City is still as complex to navigate as a laser maze because of the 30-year-old Mahomes, who’s playing a shiftier brand of football than ever.
Mahomes’ sack rate the past two years has been the highest of his career. Still, the Chiefs rank ninth in the NFL overall in sack rate allowed. And Mahomes has gotten the ball out at an average rate of 2.69 seconds in 2025 — more than 0.2 ticks faster than any season of his NFL career. He is a shapeshifter under center, capable of adjusting his style and timing with each passing season in Kansas City. And this year, with a shaky situation at tackle between Simmons and backup Jaylon Moore, Mahomes is either punishing teams on quick intermediate routes or with his legs.
Opposing defenses fear Mahomes much more than running back Isiah Pacheco or Kareem Hunt, as the Chiefs have faced one of the highest rates of defensive-back-heavy formations in the NFL when running the ball, according to the league’s Next Gen Stats. Pacheco and Hunt haven’t been able to take much advantage against a light box, both averaging less than 4.5 yards a carry on such attempts. But Mahomes has feasted: 7.8 yards a carry and 266 yards with his legs when defenses go with seven or less near the line of scrimmage.
His one weakness? Pressure. Mahomes is 28-of-71 passing when under duress, according to Next Gen Stats. Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph has done an outstanding job of throwing pressure at Mahomes across the Broncos and Chiefs’ last three meetings, and held him to a total of two touchdowns in that time.
“It’s more about getting them covered, and making them hold the ball enough until we can get there,” Joseph said Thursday.
Denver will need another monster effort from Bonitto and company at Empower Field on Sunday in a game that could assert them as the new class of the AFC West.
“This division’s been run by the Chiefs for so many years now,” Bonitto said Monday. “So, I mean, if we’re going to want to be that team to win the division and reach the goals that we said we want, we’re gonna have to go through them and beat them.”
Who has the edge?
When Broncos run: Denver will play without bell-cow J.K. Dobbins for the first time this year, in some truly horrendous timing. Suddenly, rookie RJ Harvey will be thrown to the wolves against Chris Jones, Nick Bolton and company. Harvey has only gotten 10-plus carries once this year, and is averaging 3.3 yards a carry outside of a 50-yard pop in Week 1. Kansas City has a top-12 rushing defense through nine games in 2025. Edge: Chiefs
When Broncos pass: Bo Nix has been a bottom-tier NFL quarterback this year outside of the fourth quarter. The clutch gene helps. Against the Raiders last week, the script actually flipped. Nix was in rhythm in the second quarter before completely falling out of it in the second half. Denver will need juice from Nix early and late against Kansas City with Dobbins out and an untested Harvey in the run game. This is the kind of matchup where the Broncos start to determine if he’s the guy for a long-term extension after 2026. Edge: Chiefs
When Chiefs run: The key here is Patrick Mahomes. Lead back Isiah Pacheco’s health is up in the air after a sprained MCL in Week 8, and backfield mate Kareem Hunt has averaged 3.6 yards a carry across his last four NFL seasons. But Mahomes is on pace for the best rushing season of his career, and has put up 123 yards on the ground and two touchdowns in his last two games. The Broncos have handled dual-threat QBs with aplomb this year, but Mahomes is a different kind. Slight edge: Broncos
When Chiefs pass: The Broncos still don’t have cornerback Pat Surtain II (pec). The Chiefs have Mahomes, even if coordinator Vance Joseph has proven effective at containing him. WR1 Rashee Rice has been back for three weeks, too, adding a much more dangerous element to Kansas City’s attack. Slight edge: Chiefs
Special teams: Chiefs punter Matt Araiza has pinned the second-highest percentage of boots inside the 20 (54.5%) of any punter in the NFL this season. Broncos rookie Jeremy Crawshaw now sits below league-average in that category, and the punting differential in Raiders-Broncos nearly swung a game for Las Vegas. The Broncos do get a huge lift with the return of All-Pro Marvin Mims Jr., and Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker has been iffy this year. Edge: Even
Coaching: The Andy Reid-Matt Nagy-Steve Spagnuolo trio is as proven as any in the NFL. Joseph is one of the highest-regarded defensive coordinators in the NFL at the moment, but Sean Payton has plenty to prove with his play-calling and offensive execution after the past two weeks. Slight edge: Chiefs
Tale of the tape
Broncos
Chiefs
Total offense
334.6 (13th)
370.1 (7th)
Rush offense
128.6 (9th)
121.2 (12th)
Pass offense
206.0 (18th)
248.9 (5th)
Points per game
23.5 (17th)
26.1 (9th)
Total defense
270.7 (3rd)
291.8 (6th)
Run defense
91.2 (4th)
104.6 (12th)
Pass defense
179.5 (6th)
187.2 (7th)
Points allowed
17.3 (3rd)
17.7 (4th)
By the numbers
1,908: Patrick Mahomes’ passing yards this season when he isn’t pressured, the most in the NFL.
8: Chiefs All-Pro Chris Jones’ quarterback hits through nine games this year, on pace for his fewest total since 2017.
28: Broncos All-Pro Zach Allen’s quarterback hits through 10 games this year, the most in the NFL.
8: Difference between Allen’s QB-hit total and second-place Nik Bonitto’s (20), the same difference between Bonitto’s total and 19th-place Leonard Williams.
4: Bo Nix’s game-winning drives in 2025, the most in the NFL.
18%: Percentage of snaps Broncos linebacker Dre Greenlaw has played where he’s recorded a tackle.
X-factors
Broncos: LB Justin Strnad. He’s stepped up for two years in the face of injuries, and Strnad will step back into the limelight against Kansas City after starting ILB Alex Singleton revealed Monday he’d had surgery to remove a testicular tumor. Strnad said Monday the Broncos will be playing for Singleton, and this Kansas City matchup will put Strnad’s skills in coverage and pass-rush on full display as Vance Joseph tries to disrupt Patrick Mahomes.
Chiefs: WR Xavier Worthy. He’s one of the fastest players in the league, but — much like the Broncos’ utilization of speedster Mims — Worthy’s usage comes and goes with each passing week. Andy Reid said this past week that Kansas City isn’t “down on Xavier Worthy,” and the Broncos will need to account for Worthy on every single snap without defensive leaders Pat Surtain II and green-dot captain Singleton.
Post predictions
Parker Gabriel, Broncos reporter: Kansas City 23, Denver 21
The Broncos are 6-2 in one-score games. The Chiefs are 0-4. And yet K.C. is a 4-point road favorite against the team with the NFL’s longest home winning streak. Sean Payton will readily remind anyone listening that you are what your record says you are, but your record does not necessarily forecast what you’re expected to be going forward. The West tightens by one turn.
Luca Evans, Broncos reporter: Kansas City 24, Denver 20
This is not the week to be missing J.K. Dobbins, Pat Surtain II and Alex Singleton, who are among the 10 most important players on this Broncos roster. Kansas City is vulnerable. So is Denver, suddenly, with a rash of injuries and absences. Let’s circle back to this matchup in Week 17 on Christmas.
Troy Renck, columnist: Broncos 19, Chiefs 17
Everything screams loss for the Broncos with their injuries and the Chiefs’ urgency. But the reality is the Broncos have a path to victory. Every big game Patrick Mahomes has lost over the last few years involves a defensive line capable of making him miserable. The Broncos will get to Mahomes, and the upset hinges on creating turnovers and a short field for Bo Nix. The template is the Texans game.
Sean Keeler, columnist: Broncos 23, Chiefs 22
If Andy Reid’s 22-4 career record after a bye doesn’t scare you, this number might: The Chiefs are 14-1 in division road tilts since 2016 from Nov. 1 to the end of the regular season. That one loss? The “KC JV Game” here in Week 18 of last year. When they try, they fly. But once you get that 2015 vibe, it’s hard to let that go. With Empower rocking and the defense rolling, Mile High Magic somehow finds a way.
After all, the orange and blue went 2-0 over the last seven days to extend Denver’s lead atop the AFC West with an 8-2 record. The Broncos set up a showdown with the Chiefs (5-4) at Empower Field on Nov. 16 that could officially end the Mahomes-Reid stranglehold on the division.
It’s how they got there. A victory over the Texans (18-15) was due to a brilliant defense and a very timely injury to Houston quarterback C.J. Stroud. A win over the Raiders (10-7) on Thursday night was an exercise in sheer agony. Brilliant defense again, but mostly agony.
Payton insisted midweek that he had everything he needed inside Broncos Park Powered by CommonSpirit. Against Vegas, his offense showed him otherwise.
Several reports over the last few weeks had the Broncos sniffing around at offensive additions, primarily at wide receiver. Denver was allegedly a suitor for New Orleans wideout Rashid Shaheed, only to be pipped by the Seahawks.
NFL reporter Jordan Schultz then claimed the Broncos reached out to the Dolphins to inquire about Shaheed clone Jaylen Waddle, only to find the reported asking price — a first-round draft pick, at the least — to be too steep.
Considering the Colts (7-2) coughed up two first-round picks to free star cornerback Sauce Gardner from the Jets, it puzzled the kids in the GTW offices why the Broncos wouldn’t consider a corresponding move in kind. Nix will only be on a rookie contract for so long, and the Broncos’ cap situation improves significantly in 2026.
Waddle would be an upgrade over Troy Franklin. But we’re not sure he’d be a significant improvement over Marvin Mims Jr., assuming the latter is good to go. And it would be a waste of a first-rounder to land a guy that Sean Payton would likely just be asking to block on screens anyway.
DePodesta is a Rockie! — C
The GTW gang is torn on this one. We’re mildly and pleasantly surprised that Rockies CEO Dick Monfort hired a director of baseball operations from a) outside the organization; and b) outside his genetic family tree. Baby steps, after all, are still steps.
That said, Paul DePodesta coming to Colorado is, if not straight outta left field, at least from the gap in left-center.
DePodesta was at the forefront of the analytics movement in baseball, although that forefront was multiple decades ago – the “Peter Brand” character in the movie “Moneyball” was based on DePodesta and his work with Billy Beane.
Not Peter Brand also hasn’t worked for a baseball club in 10 years. During that aforementioned decade, he was pulling strings behind the scenes with the Cleveland Browns, who might be the NFL’s equivalent of the Rockies in terms of dysfunction. With the Browns, he was part of the trade that brought Deshaun Watson to Cleveland for six draft picks — six! — and then agreed to ink Watson to a five-year, $230-million deal. Which panned out for the Browns even worse than that trade-and-sign with Russell Wilson worked for the Broncos.
We’ll try to keep an open mind, here, although we can’t shake the feeling that Monfort thought he was actually hiring actor Jonah Hill, who played Brand in “Moneyball.” Although if Paul can somehow get Kris Bryant off the books, he’ll already be a 70% improvement over Bill Schmidt.
After two weeks of special teams errors and repeated frustration from head coach Sean Payton, Broncos special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi placed himself squarely under the bus on Thursday.
“We cannot be the reason that we’re losing field position, and things like that,” Rizzi told reporters Thursday. “But listen, it starts with me. Always starts with me as a coordinator, and trickles down to the players.
“So, I certainly take full responsibility on getting it cleaned up.”
The Broncos have endured weeks of inconsistent play under the veteran coordinator, who came to Denver in the offseason from New Orleans as a former colleague of Payton. It all boiled over in the last two games, with a communication error preceding a concussion for All-Pro returner Marvin Mims Jr. and multiple players running out late on special teams units against the Texans last Sunday.
Rizzi explained that a recent rash of injuries jumbled substitutions against Houston, and he said Denico Autry’s first-quarter field-goal block last Sunday was “frustrating” given a weeklong emphasis on protection. Rizzi, though, gave credit to the play of offensive linemen Calvin Throckmorton, Frank Crum and others on a game-winning field goal from Lutz and expressed confidence in his ability to right the ship.
“I’ve always prided myself on being an organized, disciplined guy,” Rizzi said. “I think you guys probably know that about me by now. And so, those are things we gotta get cleaned up.
“And we will. We’ll get that done this week.”
Broncos release former All-Pro special-teamer: Rizzi’s units will continue to cycle through some change against the Raiders on Thursday night after the Broncos waived safety J.T. Gray with an injury designation. The specialist landed on Monday’s injury report with a hamstring injury after playing 21 special teams snaps in the Broncos’ 18-15 win over Houston.
The Broncos signed Gray, a second-team All-Pro with the Saints in 2024, off the Ravens’ practice squad in mid-October. Rizzi called him the “best coverage player that I’ve coached,” and Denver could’ve used some juice on its kick units. But Gray was inactive his first two games in Denver, and the Broncos are now cutting ties.
Mims back at practice: After a laundry list of an injury report on Monday, the Broncos had a cleaner bill of health at practice Tuesday. Mims was back and limited at practice after missing Sunday’s game with a concussion. Cornerback Riley Moss and safety Brandon Jones were also present during stretching and limited, after both landed as would-be DNPs on Monday’s report.
Cornerback Pat Surtain II was seen doing rehab work on the side field, along with tight end Nate Adkins and linebackers Drew Sanders and Garret Wallow. Kicker Lutz, meanwhile, landed on Tuesday’s injury report as a DNP with an illness.
Lutz and Payton have ‘unique relationship’: On Lutz’s game-winning 34-yarder against the Texans, Payton was caught by television cameras venturing out to holler at Lutz — mouthing “right through!” and gesturing at the uprights.
The two have a “very unique relationship,” Rizzi said. Lutz has been Payton’s kicker for eight seasons, dating back to 2016 with the New Orleans Saints.
“I think he knows Sean’s going to probably say something on the way out,” Rizzi joked. “He probably says more than just that at other times.”
The question started innocently enough, only for Sean Payton to obfuscate the Broncos’ intentions as much as possible.
With the trade, and you’re in a buyer position, philosophically, do you believe in the benefit–
“With what trade?” Payton said on a Monday conference call, interrupting a reporter.
Philosophically, do you believe in sending a message to the team that you’re all in?
“We would never make a trade to send a message to the team,” Payton said. “Everyone in the locker room, our players, coaches, management, front office, knows that we’re all in to win.
“The trade would take place — this supposed trade — if we found value in something that could help us,” Payton continued. “Period. That’s it. We’re not looking to send a message.”
As Tuesday’s 2 p.m. trade deadline approaches, the NFL world is keeping a close eye on the Broncos’ aggressiveness, as the club evaluates a potential Payton-dubbed supposed trade. Denver is 7-2 and a game up in the AFC West entering a key stretch run, with two divisional games against the Chiefs remaining. They also still carry a litany of glaring issues, making them a potential buyer at the deadline.
But would they gamble away draft picks for an all-in rental?
“We’ll see,” Payton responded when asked Monday if Denver was in a position where they wanted to make a move.
Payton and others have expressed public confidence in the current Broncos roster. Anything is possible in the next 24 hours, but a trail of breadcrumbs leads to a single most likely outcome: Denver either stands pat or doesn’t make an overall massive splash.
“It is what it is,” Payton said in Sunday’s postgame presser when asked to evaluate his team at the halfway point. “It’s our record. I lost track…”
Someone reminded him that the Broncos are 7-2.
“There you go,” Payton continued. “That’s how I see it. That’s pretty good.”
Trade rumors have floated around the Broncos for weeks. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Denver is one of a few teams that’ve made a call inquiring about wide receivers. And Denver has a few positions where it could look to upgrade or find depth: receiver, tight end and left guard, most notably.
But there are considerations with each of those position groups that muddy the waters.
In his almost 20 years as an NFL head coach, Payton’s teams have never traded for a wide receiver at the deadline. In late October, offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi also expressed faith in the receivers Denver has on its roster when asked if they could look to the deadline for WR help. Plus, Denver gave $16.5 million guaranteed to tight end Evan Engram in the offseason and still hasn’t figured out how to consistently use him in its offense (0 catches on 3 targets at the Texans Sunday).
The Broncos could also look for help at inside linebacker, but Vance Joseph’s defense revolves around ILB Alex Singleton as a primary on-field communicator. Denver’s is also ramping up inside linebacker Dre Greenlaw to full speed after he missed seven of the first nine weeks while rehabbing a quad and serving a one-game suspension. Greenlaw played 37% of the Broncos’ defensive snaps Sunday and was in on some fourth-quarter looks. His usage should only rise.
“It’s good to have him in the lineup. It was tough waiting and making that decision,” Payton said, referring to the Broncos’ move to put Greenlaw on injured reserve earlier in the year, “but hindsight, it was worth it.”
Denver could evaluate offensive-line help at the deadline, with left guard Ben Powers’ eventual return from a biceps tear uncertain. But the tea leaves, for now, aren’t showing a massive swing. Backup Alex Palczewski has filled in ably the past three weeks, and there’s plenty of overall confidence already brewing inside the Broncos’ locker room.
“We are at the point where we expect to give ourselves a chance to win every game,” quarterback Bo Nix said Sunday, after an ugly 18-15 win over the Texans. “The expectations are that we’re going to compete and find a way, however it looks.”
The Easter Bunny? Fuzzy-wuzzy fraud. The Tooth Fairy? Fake chews. But if a game is within 19 points at the start of the fourth quarter, just watch the Bo-ller Coaster go to work. Just watch him find a way.
“I think a really good issue to have is when you’re finding these ugly wins, because I don’t think it’ll always be like that,” the Broncos’ tow-headed quarterback said Sunday after rallying Denver to an 18-15 victory at Houston — a game he trailed 15-7 at the start of the fourth quarter.
“For right now, the ugly wins are how we’re doing it, so that’s just what we’re gonna continue to find ways to do. Now, obviously, we’ve got to improve in many different areas. But the ugly wins, they’re important. They’re important down the stretch. And if you can find them and you can win these one-possession games, it helps you in the future … you gotta learn how to win those.”
The Broncos are 5-2 in one-score games. They were 1-6 a year ago. Among Broncos quarterbacks, only John Elway and Peyton Manning have accounted for more fourth-quarter/overtime comebacks than Nix has in orange and blue. Seven rescues in 26 NFL starts. Tim Tebow, by the way, managed six.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
But fool me seven times?
You either got it. Or you don’t.
Bo’s got it.
“Nothing fazes him,” Broncos fullback Adam Prentice told me in the locker room after Denver’s sixth straight victory and second walk-off win in three weeks. “You think about the Giants game, we’re down a bunch (19-0 after three quarters), and (from him) it’s, ‘Hey, next play, let’s score and go to the next one.’ Which helps us in the huddle, and it keeps everybody even keel and just lets you focus on the job.
“It’s kind of the unspoken word. Like, we know we can do it, and we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna answer the call when we need to.”
Bo Nix (10) of the Denver Broncos throws deep against the Houston Texans during the second quarter at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas on Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
The stats were uglier than the scoreboard — 17 completions on 36 throws, 170 passing yards, two scores and an interception.
Context: The Texans rolled in with the No. 1 scoring defense in the NFL for a reason. The 49ers managed 175 passing yards here last week. The Titans collected 93. Tampa Bay managed 191.
In Week 8, Nix scored 44 points against Dallas, the best offense in the NFL. In Week 9, he walked off the NFL’s best defense, a desperate bunch trying to avoid five losses, in its backyard.
Nix went into the fourth quarter having completed nine passes in 21 attempts for just 97 yards. Over the next 15 minutes, he made good on 9 of 16 attempts for 76 yards and a score, along with three rushes for 36 yards. His 25-yard scramble to daylight set up Wil Lutz’s game-winning kick.
“Describe Bo today in a word,” I asked Prentice.
He tilted his head for a second.
“Competitor,” Prentice replied.
“Why?” I wondered.
“Because, regardless of the situation, he’s going to come out and make plays and compete,” the Broncos fullback continued. “Like I was saying with the Giants game, it doesn’t matter what situation we’re in, he’s going to go out there and sling it or run it or hand it to the backs, do whatever he’s got to do. And we’re going to go make a play. It just doesn’t matter. We’re going to go out there and execute.”
Eventually. Yes, beating Houston backup QB Davis Mills on the road has a different aftertaste than beating C.J. Stroud, who left early with a concussion.
Yes, Nix needs to run more. Selectively. Wisely. On at least two fourth-quarter throws, No. 10 elected to stay in the pocket, step up and force the ball downfield instead of tucking and running. Both throws were fired long.
“Listen, don’t talk about that,” Broncos coach Sean Payton countered when I asked about Nix chucking when he should be tucking. “In other words, his eyes are within the progression.
“You don’t tell that player too much when it comes to something like that, you know what I mean? Like, ‘Do you inhale or exhale when you’re backswinging (in golf)?’ I don’t want anyone asking me that question, all right?
“But I think there are certainly designed runs you saw. Again, we gotta keep working with his clock, because it gets quick. There’s someone open, and there’s some throws he’s gonna want to correct. But that’s a good problem to have.”
Head coach Sean Payton locks into the action during the third quarter of the Broncos’ 18-15 win over the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas on Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Meanwhile, if you’re going to accuse the Broncos of head-hunting because of Payton’s history, put the tin foil hat away. Kris Abrams-Draine’s hit on Stroud was legal, if a tad late. Watch it again: The Broncos cornerback was making a point, at full speed, to strike well below Stroud’s head. The concussion was from the QB’s noggin hitting the turf on a late slide, not from Abrams-Draine attempting to decapitate the guy. Game of inches, kids. Game of inches.
“Winning’s fun,” Prentice said. “It’s contagious. When you want to keep doing it, it’s contagious. You just want to keep getting after it and keep getting those wins and stacking them. But yeah, it’s a lot of fun.”
Less fun: Payton’s run-pass balance. Or continual lack thereof. The Broncos rushed on three of their opening four plays. Payton handed off just four times over the next 24. J.K. Dobbins had 24 rushing yards on his initial four touches. He didn’t see the rock again until the first play of the second half — a 9-yard rush.
You tell us, Coach.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Payton said. “I like to win.”
Like the man said: It’s contagious.
“No one wants to let anyone down,” Payton stressed. “That’s a good thing.”
The best thing, really.
“What’s our record?” Sunshine Sean asked the media rhetorically. “I lost track.”
“Seven and two,” the scribes said in unison, as if in a classroom.
“That’s right,” Payton said, back in teacher mode. “That’s how I see it. Pretty good.”
Sure is. Seven comebacks in a year-and-a-half? Nobody’s that lucky. When it comes to the Bo-ller Coaster, buckle up. Just don’t forget to enjoy the ride.
May the Fourth be with you
For the fourth time in the last five games, the Denver Broncos rallied to win a game they trailed entering the fourth quarter. One of the central reasons for that: Bo Nix’s ability to elevate his play with the game on the line in the final 15 minutes. Here is a look at the second-year Broncos quarterback’s production by quarter this season, with Sunday’s numbers against the Texans in parentheses:
Everything Dre Greenlaw brings to a team, we have not yet seen. His leadership, controlled violence and sticky coverage. That was the hype. Eight months later, it is time to examine Greenlaw’s reality in Denver.
Hmm. Absent or incomplete? Which one fits best?
First, his body let him down, a quadriceps injury costing him the first six games. Then he let his team down, yelling at official Brad Allen after the walk-off win over the Giants, resulting in a one-game suspension.
Greenlaw has made an impact behind the scenes, setting an example with his work ethic and daily intensity. But it has not translated to the field, where his season consists of six tackles on 21 snaps against the Giants. Greenlaw showed accountability on Thursday, admitting he should not have put the Broncos in position to play without him because of his outburst. This was an important step.
Now, the Broncos need the best of Greenlaw moving forward. They are a contender. Whether or not they can win the AFC West or host a playoff matchup hinges on games like Sunday. The Texans are scrambling for a wild-card berth. The Broncos can move 3.5 games ahead of them with a win. After demolishing the hapless Raiders, the Broncos would then host the Chiefs on Nov. 16 in the franchise’s biggest game since Super Bowl 50.
This will not happen without Greenlaw returning to his 2023 form, without the former star filling the vacuum left by Pat Surtain II’s absence. There is evidence that Greenlaw’s ability remains; that he can instill fear for roughly 45 snaps on Sunday.
But he cannot talk about it. He has to be about it.
Will the real Dre Greenlaw please stand up?
Return of Naz: Lost in the Avs agreeing to an eight-year, $92 million extension with Martin Necas, rumors continue to percolate about Colorado pursuing Nazem Kadri in a trade. It is way too early to get excited about the prospect. But it cannot be dismissed out of hand. The Flames are going nowhere, and Kadri’s history in Colorado was real and spectacular. He played himself into a huge contract after helping the Avs win the Stanley Cup in 2022. Making his $7 million salary fit would be messy. But when has GM Chris MacFarland ever shied away from a challenge? If Kadri is willing to return, the Avs have to look into it.
Lost season for Hunter: This brings no joy to write. Travis Hunter’s rookie season is a bust. The Jaguars spent two months showing they had no idea how to use him. Now, he might not play again after landing on the injured reserve with a non-contact knee injury. Hunter boasts 28 catches for 298 yards and one touchdown, and 15 tackles. This is not the return the Jaguars expected when they shipped the No. 5 overall pick, a second-round pick (No. 36), a fourth-round pick (No. 126) and their 2026 first-round pick to Cleveland to draft him. This week, the Jags promised to make him the focus of the passing game. So if there is any good news, it is this: When Hunter returns, either this season or next, the Jaguars might actually have a plan for him. Imagine that.
Shohei-Wemby comp: Shohei Ohtani is already a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Those of us lucky enough to stay up for the Dodgers’ 18-inning Game 3 win will never forget his 4-for-4, two-homer, five-walk performance. But as soon as baseball ends, we are blessed with another unicorn. With apologies to Nikola Jokic, that is Victor Wembanyama. He is the future, a 7-foot-5 pterodactyl who is averaging 30.2 points, 14.6 rebounds, 4.8 blocks and 3.4 assists, while shooting 31.2% from the 3-point line. As with Ohtani, no one has ever seen anything like this.
At the end of another J.K. Dobbins scrum that charmed the masses, employed little filter and featured him smiling roughly 5,643 times, left tackle Garett Bolles wandered over with a request.
“I’m Garett Bolles, from K-Jazz 101,” Bolles said Thursday, posing as a reporter. “I’m just here to ask you a question about your Spanish. You’ve learned a lot of Spanish over the years, and I just — can you touch base on that, please?”
“¿Qué pasa, hombre, amigo?” Bolles responded, which translates roughly to What’s up, man friend? in English.
Dobbins doubled over and shrieked with laughter.
Any time Dobbins is mentioned in a news conference in Denver, Broncos head coach Sean Payton has uttered some version of the following: Denver knew what they were going to get on the field. They didn’t know they were getting, as Payton said Wednesday, “all this other stuff.” The personality, according to Payton, is infectious, beyond the success of a running back who ranks third in the league in rushing yards. And Broncos Country has rapidly become enamored with Dobbins.
On Thursday, Dobbins took the love up another notch.
“Far as extension and stuff like that, that doesn’t cross my mind,” Dobbins responded when asked about potentially re-upping with Denver. “But, me just wanting to be here in Denver — yes. I hope to end my career here and be here for the rest of my time in the NFL.”
Currently, Dobbins is playing on a one-year deal with a base value of $2.7 million. And Denver is quite fond of rookie second-round back RJ Harvey. But Dobbins made quite clear he wants to stay a Bronco.
“I don’t really think about that,” Dobbins said. “But, yeah, that would be nice. Because I want to be in Denver. I love it.
“I love the fanbase,” Dobbins continued, gushing. “I think the fanbase and I have a connection. Love my teammates. And I also love, I love Sean Payton. I love the owners.”
Dobbins has played 10 games just twice in five previous seasons in the NFL, and the Broncos appeared poised to slowly pass the torch from Dobbins to Harvey. Through eight games, though, Dobbins has shown no signs of slowing down. The breakaway burst may not be what it once was, but the vision remains. Dobbins racked up a season-high 111 rushing yards on 15 carries against a porous Cowboys defense last Sunday. He’s also held off Harvey for a true backfield timeshare, although the rookie had three touchdowns on just eight touches Sunday.
The division of playing time suggests the Broncos still trust Dobbins more as a pass protector. The veteran has 29 pass-blocking snaps to Harvey’s four this season. On Sunday, he lit up Cowboys safety Markquese Bell to give Bo Nix ample time to laser a 32-yard touchdown strike to Troy Franklin.
“He sticks his face in there,” Nix said of Dobbins. “He’s not a prima donna that is not worried about getting hit, or not wanting to protect, or just wanting the football. He just does whatever the team needs him to do.”
Dobbins sits at 5.3 yards a carry, and 216 rushing yards behind the Colts’ Jonathan Taylor for the NFL lead. It’s a distant gap. But Dobbins, the self-tubbed “El Toro,” is bullish on himself.
“I still want to be number one, ahead of those guys,” Dobbins said, complimenting Taylor and the Bills’ James Cook. “And I’m going to keep working every single week, no matter the task at hand. Like, there’s what, nine weeks left in the season, regular season? That’s nine weeks left for me to try to get that number-one spot. That’s how I look at it. And I’m gonna work my butt off to do it.”
Dobbins is 26 years old in a league where players at his position typically fall off the closer they get to their 30s. He has had multiple season-ending leg injuries. But he has now proven it on two straight prove-it deals, with the Chargers in 2024 and now in Denver. And Dobbins’ success has presented general manager George Paton with a rather complicated decision.
“I don’t think about the extension part,” Dobbins repeated on Thursday. “I just think about me being here. Because I love it. I love the beautiful mountains.”
The Broncos put together an unbeaten October, and their kicker was a big part of the reason why.
Wil Lutz, who knocked home a walk-off 39-yard field goal to cap a wild comeback win against the New York Giants and didn’t miss a kick over Denver’s 4-0 October, was named the AFC special teams player of the month Thursday.
Lutz made all six of his field goal attempts and nine extra points over a perfect October. That run included several big kicks. Not only did he make the walk-off against the Giants, but he was the only kicker in the AFC to hit two field goals from 55 or more yards in the month, knocking home a 55-yarder against Philadelphia and then a 57-yarder (his longest as a Bronco) the next week against the New York Jets in London.
Lutz had little room for error most of the month. The Broncos’ first three victories came by three, one and one point, respectively, and each required a fourth-quarter comeback.
The value of consistent kicking was never higher than against the Giants, when Lutz made all three of his kicks and New York’s kicker missed a pair of extra points.
Lutz also won the monthly award in November last year and became the second player in franchise history to take home the award twice, joining former kicker Matt Prater.
Harvey rookie of the week: Broncos rookie running back RJ Harvey was named the NFL’s rookie of the week for Week 8.
Harvey scored three touchdowns in just eight offensive touches Sunday in a 44-24 win against the Cowboys. The second-round pick out of UCF opened Denver’s scoring with a 40-yard touchdown run and later added a 1-yard plunge on a direct snap and a 5-yard reception in the fourth quarter.
Harvey has 315 total yards of offense (200 rushing yards) on the season and five total touchdowns (three receiving).
The Broncos are in the market for help at tight end.
Where, ultimately, Denver finds it at this point is an open question.
The Broncos, at the moment, are down to two healthy players on their 53-man roster in Evan Engram and Adam Trautman, and a pair of project-types on their practice squad in rookie Caleb Lohner and Patrick Murtagh.
Sean Payton’s offense has seen its depth dwindle quickly in recent days.
Lucas Krull originally hoped to return from injured reserve after the minimum four weeks due to a foot injury, but instead, he ended up having surgery Monday to repair a metatarsal fracture. He’s now expected to miss in the neighborhood of eight more weeks, a source told The Denver Post, which means most of the remaining regular season.
Nate Adkins, meanwhile, sustained a left knee injury in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s win against Dallas. The injury appeared to happen without contact on a play that resulted in a touchdown pass from Bo Nix to Troy Franklin. The severity of Adkins’ injury has not been revealed.
The Broncos, though, attempted to address their depth at the position Monday when, multiple sources confirmed to The Post, they put in waiver claims for both Ben Sims and Brenden Bates.
Sims had been waived by Green Bay and Bates by Houston.
Denver, however, lost out on both because teams higher in the waiver priority — Minnesota and Cleveland, respectively — also put claims in and thus were awarded the players.
So now Denver is looking for other routes to fill the position. One part of the equation is that Trautman will likely see his playing time increase again.
The veteran played just 30.9% of Denver’s offensive snaps against the New York Giants in Week 7, tied for his lowest usage in two-plus seasons with the Broncos. He’d seen an overall decline in playing time as Adkins got up to speed after a training camp ankle injury that cost him the first two games of the season.
Adkins had been playing between 30-40% of Denver’s offensive snaps and provided some versatility — an ‘F’ tight end who could play out of the backfield, in the passing game and as a blocker.
“He’s too good of a football player for us. We’re going to need him,” Payton said at the outset of the season when Denver opted not to put him on injured reserve.
Now the Broncos may have to examine options externally.
They could look to a familiar face from training camp like Caden Prieskorn, who just recently signed with Cleveland’s practice squad.
Or they can try to work via the trade market with the NFL’s trading deadline just a week away.
Among tight ends around the league who have reportedly drawn interest, could be available or generally make sense as potential trade targets, is a list that includes Cleveland’s David Njoku, Baltimore’s Mark Andrews, Tennessee’s Chig Okonkwo, and New Orleans’ Taysom Hill and Foster Moreau. There are, of course, others around the league, including a pair Denver just faced in former Broncos veteran Chris Manhertz and Daniel Bellinger with the Giants. Bellinger is in the final year of his rookie deal and had the best game of his career against the Broncos.
Depth issues can force a team’s hand in making a move, but Payton has previously cautioned against the idea that a trade deadline acquisition can change a team’s fortunes.
There’s not much time to learn a system, and Payton, in particular, is protective of the locker room culture the Broncos have developed.
A year ago, before the deadline, he brought up similar points.
“My brother’s the worst at this,” he said then. “He’s the worst at free agency, and he’s the worst at the trade deadline. He just wants to see action. Then right after the action takes place, he never goes back and reflects and says, ‘Well, that was a bad signing,’ or, ‘That was a bad trade.’
“I kid him, but I think that there’s so much more that goes into it relative to whether you’re trading a player or acquiring a player.
“Contracts go into it, vision goes into it and the locker room goes into it. There are a lot of details that go into that.”
Dallas came to Empower Field on Sunday afternoon wielding some of the best weapons in the game, but riddled with holes from weapons they couldn’t stop.
This would be an old-fashioned mountain shootout between the Broncos and the Cowboys, the latter a franchise ranked dead-last in the NFL in total defense.
“We wanted,” Sean Payton reflected later Sunday, “to keep them last.”
On Saturday night, in the kind of film-review meeting that normally glazes eyes, Payton introduced a semi-surprise. Joe Harrington, the Broncos’ director of football video, stitched together tape of 11 plays they’d repped throughout the week that Payton felt could go for touchdowns. And Harrington, at Payton’s behest, overlayed the college fight song of the scoring recipient on each play.
Bryant’s eyes lit up when discussing the meeting. Franklin smiled that all the flair was “pretty funny.” Veteran receiver Trent Sherfield, who has played for six NFL franchises and seven head coaches, put it best.
“It’s Sean, bro,” the 29-year-old told The Denver Post. “Like, he has a lot of tricks up his sleeve.”
Payton whipped them all out a day later, throwing every grain of magic dust he had at the Cowboys in a 44-24 win that steadied concerns about the Broncos’ offensive inconsistency.
After Bo Nix attacked the sidelines and middle of the field in a four-touchdown performance, and J.K. Dobbins stayed in rhythm in a 15-carry, 111-yard performance, Payton made one thing clear postgame: He didn’t think Dallas’ defense could keep up.
Thus, the head coach recounted, he started to goad on his defense through four smashmouth quarters: Can you guys keep up with us?
“He’s our head football coach,” Engram said postgame after he was asked if he felt urgency from Payton throughout the week. “I think after the three quarters we had last week, you’re gon’ feel some pressure.”
This was Payton at his best, a roaring flame for four quarters after weeks of flickers. This is the essence of a head coach who’s long operated with a distinct swagger, as former New Orleans players describe, and the teachings of mentor Bill Parcells. There are multitudes of ways to win a game, Parcells taught him. In Dallas, Parcells often tried to cut plays from his ambitious coordinator’s play-sheet — only to turn around before one anticipated shootout against the Chiefs and tell Payton to throw the kitchen sink at Kansas City.
Twenty years later, this was a kitchen-sink game. Payton knew it. His players sensed it. The fight-song tape, on Saturday night, was evidence.
“We ran just about all the ones we went over,” Bryant said. “So I mean, just going out there and just seeing the execution – man, just knowing we did what we needed to do to catch that dub was special.”
The Broncos have been stop-and-go offensively because of Payton’s inconsistent commitment to the run game and an emphasis on short dunks early in games. They have also been stop-and-go offensively because of a lack of execution in various phases — blocking, penalties and organization.
There was less of that on Sunday. There were still a handful of ineligible-man-downfield and offensive-pass-interference whistles. But they weren’t drive-killers. There was no visible confusion, and no offensive timeouts to review a play. This was a machine that’s now racked up 77 points and 721 total yards of offense in its last five quarters.
“Everybody got to really see the offense that we can be,” Sherfield said. “And I think we all experienced it as well, too.”
Denver’s skill players noticed a “difference of play-calling” for Payton, Franklin said Sunday.
The Broncos went three-and-out on their opening drives for five straight weeks, and Nix threw three straight incompletions to open last weekend’s game against the Giants.
Payton came out on Sunday in a smashmouth run package with Sherfield, Trautman and Bryant, handed the ball to Dobbins for 7 yards on the first play, and kept riding the two-back duo of Dobbins and RJ Harvey on early downs.
As Dobbins and Harvey got going — a combined 157 yards on 22 carries — a weak Cowboys secondary opened up for Payton and Nix, who connected on three deep balls to Franklin, Bryant and later Courtland Sutton. Nix entered Week 8 with just six such completions of throws longer than 20 yards.
“I just think he got a couple more passes in there for us,” Franklin said of Payton’s play-calling. “Just kind of evened up the run and pass calls.”
Payton’s approach found a balance between ruthless precision and trickery. Harvey had a direct-snap Wildcat touchdown in the second quarter on a play Payton’s had in rotation “for like five weeks.” And Franklin’s second TD grab of the game, in the fourth quarter, came on a play where the Broncos wanted to target Franklin’s matchup — former fellow Duck Trikweze Bridgers.
“That’s part of the game,” Payton said.
Payton did not want to beat Dallas. He wanted to bury them. He called five straight passes against a reeling Cowboys defense with eight minutes left, resulting in Nix’s fourth TD on a short flick to Harvey. Payton called a go-route for Engram while up 37-17 with seven minutes to play.
And his locker room felt his offense click in a way it hadn’t shown yet this season.
“That’s going to help us going forward to point to this game and – ‘Hey, this is how we need to play,’” Sherfield said. “‘No matter who’s out there.’”
The Broncos closed out the Cowboys in emphatic fashion in the second half of Sunday’s blowout, but not without a possible blow to their offense.
Denver is placing receiver Marvin Mims Jr. in the concussion protocol, the team said. Mims took a massive helmet-to-helmet shot from Cowboys corner Reddy Stewart on a 9-yard rush in the third quarter, but Mims continued to play throughout the second half. A source told The Denver Post that he sustained a concussion and entered protocol after a hit on a kickoff return with less than five minutes to play in the fourth quarter.
On that 26-yard return, Mims appeared to take a shot to the back of his helmet while falling out of bounds. The All-Pro returner lingered on the turf for a beat before getting up and returning to the sideline.
After a six-catch, 85-yard breakout in Week 7 against the Giants, Mims was quieter offensively against the Cowboys with three carries for 18 yards but no catches and just a single target. He made a big impact in the return game, though, with one 46-yard runback of a third-quarter kickoff that set up a Broncos field goal.
The Broncos suffered a massive injury scare not five minutes into Sunday’s game against the Cowboys.
On a second-and-1 from the Broncos’ 1-yard line, star cornerback Pat Surtain II went up high against the Cowboys’ George Pickens, knocking a pass from Dak Prescott away. After hitting the turf, Surtain popped up just fine in celebration — but after a couple steps, fell back to the turf and began clutching at his lower right leg.
Trainers came out to examine Surtain, who appeared in obvious pain on the turf at Empower Field. Eventually, two Broncos staffers helped Surtain limp gingerly off the field, the star cornerback seemingly unable to put much weight on his leg.
He went immediately to the Broncos’ sideline medical tent, and exited after a few minutes, appearing to test out his leg with some dropback work on the sidelines. After missing just the final couple plays of Denver’s first defensive drive, though, Surtain grabbed his helmet and walked back to the Broncos’ sideline, appearing to grab at his right ankle in a small conversation with safety Talanoa Hufanga.
He returned on Denver’s second defensive drive.
Surtain previously missed a chunk of the Broncos’ Week 2 matchup with the Colts after suffering a left-ankle injury, a performance that ended up standing as one of the worst single games of his career. Since, he’s authored a dominant follow-up to his 2024 Defensive Player of the Year campaign, holding a slew of star receivers — from the Bengals’ Ja’Marr Chase in Week 4 to the Jets’ Garrett Wilson in Week 6 — in check with each passing week.
Krull undergoes surgery on foot: Reserve tight end Lucas Krull, who suffered a Jones fracture in his foot and was placed on injured reserve in early October, appears set to miss more significant time. Krull is undergoing surgery to repair the fracture, a source confirmed to The Denver Post on Sunday. Krull has just two catches for 15 yards this season, but played a significant 30% of Denver’s snaps through three games before going down.
The NFL isn’t budging on its stance to suspend a key member of the Broncos’ defense.
On Tuesday night, NFL spokesman Michael Signora announced that the league upheld its one-game suspension of Dre Greenlaw, a day after multiple sources told The Denver Post that Greenlaw would appeal the suspension.
The Broncos will now be down their starting weak-side linebacker for Week 8 against the Dallas Cowboys in Denver on Sunday after Greenlaw made his season debut in Week 7.
“After the conclusion of the Giants-Broncos game, Greenlaw chased after referee Brad Allen and verbally threatened him as he tried to leave the field,” the NFL said in a statement.
Denver will now likely turn back to Strnad for his seventh start of the season at inside linebacker, after Greenlaw racked up six tackles in 21 snaps in his return from a quad injury.
Sean Payton has no intention of handing play-calling duties off, even temporarily.
The Broncos head coach, though, indicated Monday morning that almost anything else is on the table as he and his staff try to sort through what’s causing widespread offensive problems.
Sunrise, however, brought a new week and a sober Monday morning reality check about what the first 45-plus minutes looked like for Denver’s offense.
The Broncos didn’t score. They had just 10 first downs and 180 offensive yards at 3.8 per play. Bo Nix entered the fourth quarter 11 of 25 for 105 yards passing.
Even those numbers didn’t tell the entire story as the five plays to end the third quarter featured four carries for 48 yards from J.K. Dobbins and a 16-yard completion from Nix to Courtland Sutton.
“It’s been encouraging that we’ve been able to finish some games, and yet we’re going to play in bigger games and we’re going to have to be a lot more efficient in the first half of games,” Payton said.
The third-year Broncos coach said around 10 a.m. that players hadn’t yet been in for film review, but when that happened, they’d see myriad problems offensively.
“We really didn’t amount to anything until we got into the end of the game — fourth quarter,” he said. “Mental errors, mistakes, snaps, wrong reads. You name it.”
He sounded like a coach who is ready to put a lot of the offensive plan on the table with his staff and consider any number of changes to the group’s approach through seven games.
“You start with who,” Payton said. “Who is it that we’re asking to do certain things from a personnel standpoint? There may be some guys whose playing time goes up. Some might begin to diminish. You look closely at the personnel. Then you look at the scheme and does it fit us?
“There’s a lot to that question.”
One element that’s not part of the equation, though, is the play-calling duties themselves. Payton’s long been considered one of the best in the business — he’s called it a strength of his over the course of his career — and he had a quick answer when asked Monday if he’d ever considered handing the duties off to somebody else, even for a short stretch.
“No, I think we’re comfortable as an offensive staff as to how we’re operating,” Payton said.
