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Tag: vance joseph

  • Keeler: Broncos should spend Russell Wilson money on getting Bo Nix receivers without butterfingers

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    Say this for Sean Payton: He sure liked to spread the drops around.

    The Broncos were the only NFL team to place three players among the league’s top 15 in dropped passes during the regular season, per Pro-Football-Reference.com — wide receiver Courtland Sutton (eight), tight end Evan Engram (eight) and running back RJ Harvey (seven).

    No wonder a 15-4 record feels like such a Boverachievement, in retrospect.

    It’s going to be a beast to repeat if Payton and GM George Paton don’t add an experienced, proven wideout for Bo Nix in 2026. Or a big-time tight end. Better yet, both.

    What the heck. Russell Wilson is off the books, right? Paton is rolling into the offseason with diamond encrusted Walmart gift card in his wallet. Go nuts.

    “I think the position that this team, the position that we’re in, (we) have a win-now mentality,” Engram said Monday at Dove Valley as the Broncos cleaned out their lockers following a 10-7 loss to New England in the AFC Championship. “And there are some things that we can work with to even make our roster even better.

    “So, yeah — I have the utmost faith in the guys upstairs, all the decision-makers, the coach. They’ve done a great job since they’ve been here. They’ve built (a) championship team. Being able to add to that already, we’re in a great spot. We’ll be in a good spot for a while.”

    Yeah, but you’ve got to strike now. Nix is on a rookie contract through 2027. That time is going to fly by. Like the Nuggets with Jokic and Murray and the Avs with MacKinnon and Makar, this is the window. Right here. We going for this? Or not?

    “Obviously, we need some key players to come in and do what they need to do by getting points on the scoreboard,” veteran left tackle Garett Bolles noted Monday. “(We’ve) got a phenomenal defense. We have everything we need. We just need a couple more playmakers, and sky’s the limit for this team.”

    Almost everything. Nix can sling it with Sam Darnold all stinking day. What do the Super-Bowl-bound Seahawks have that the Broncos don’t? A bell cow tailback (Kenneth Walker) who has averaged 15 games per season over his career. And a No. 1 wideout (Jaxson Smith-Njigba) who’s putting up seven catches and 86 receiving yards per game this postseason.

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    Sean Keeler

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  • Broncos-Patriots scouting report: How will Sean Payton, Jarrett Stidham handle tricky New England defense?

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    Patriots (16-3) at Broncos (15-3)

    When: 1 p.m. Sunday

    Where: Empower Field at Mile High

    TV: KCNC-4

    Radio: 850 AM, 94.1 FM

    Broncos-Patriots series: There’s some great, not-so-ancient playoff history here, between two franchises that will forever be tied to the names Manning and Brady. The last time Denver and New England faced off in the playoffs was the AFC title game after the 2015 season, as a fading Peyton Manning mustered just enough — 176 yards and two touchdowns — to put the Patriots away 20-18. Broncos cornerback Bradley Roby picked off a 2-point conversion try from Tom Brady to Julian Edelman to seal the win. Denver’s also 27-23 in all-time regular-season matchups against the Patriots.

    In the spotlight: Patriots defensive play-caller Zak Kuhr ‘keeps the dial spinning’

    Two weeks ago, after New England made Pro Bowler Justin Herbert look like a Pop Warner flameout in a 16-3 win over Los Angeles, Chargers players came up to linebacker Robert Spillane and told him they had “no clue” what coverage the Patriots were in all game. At least, by Spillane’s own admission.

    Now, the Chargers fired offensive coordinator Greg Roman a couple of days later, so that might’ve had something to do with it. But this is the evident genius of New England defensive play-caller Zak Kuhr.

    “He keeps the dial spinning,” Spillane said after New England’s wild-card win. “He keeps offenses guessing. All year, he’s been doing that.

    “For him just to be able to build those packages throughout the week, our back-end players to know how to disguise the different defenses, really keeps quarterbacks guessing,” the linebacker continued a few words later.

    Enter Jarrett Stidham, a quarterback with four career NFL starts who has Patriots defenders now guessing as to what exactly he’s capable of.

    “Nothing,” said New England defensive tackle Milton Williams in the Patriots’ locker room this week, when asked what he knew about Stidham. “Nothing. I ain’t gonna lie, nothing. We’re gonna watch the tape on him and figure out what he like to do, but, they didn’t like him over Bo, so.”

    Shrug.

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    Luca Evans

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  • Keeler: How can Broncos’ Jarrett Stidham beat Patriots? Gary Kubiak, Bubby Brister see a path

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    Eight no mountain high enough.

    “Oh shoot, I mean, he knows what he’s doing,” Gary Kubiak said of quarterback Jarrett Stidham, who’s slated to start Sunday’s AFC championship against New England. “He’s been preparing with Sean (Payton), he’s been preparing with Bo (Nix), each and every day.

    “I just think, as a coach, and I’m sure Sean (and Bo) have done that, just remind the kid what kind of team he’s on.”

    Funny how history rhymes, isn’t it? Kubiak wore No. 8 as John Elway’s understudy for almost a decade. Stidham now sports that same 8, Kubiak’s old number, as Nix’s relief, one cruel ankle twist away from the throne, over the last two seasons.

    Speaking as one No. 8 to another, our man Kubes, who coached the Broncos to the franchise’s last Super Bowl win a decade ago, offered Stidham eight simple words of advice.

    “Just get in there,” the ex-Broncos backup QB told me by phone earlier this week, “and do your job.”

    Handed the keys to a stock car in the middle of the race? Thrust into the driver’s seat on short notice? Asked to drive your team to the Super Bowl? Kubes has been there.

    Kubiak was Elway’s stand-in from 1983-91, the Cal Naughton, Jr. to John’s Ricky Bobby, a couple of buds shaking and baking all over the AFC West. While Elway was forging one of the great QB careers in NFL history, years of preparing and processing alongside No. 7 molded Kubiak into a championship coach.

    “Sometimes, you’ve got stretches where you may go a year or two years (of not playing),” Kubiak said. “Or you may get out there in a crazy spot.”

    Kubes landed one of the absolute craziest, right at the very end. He was carrying the clipboard for Elway at the ’91-’92 AFC Championship Game in Buffalo when the Broncos icon had to leave the game with a deep bruise in his right thigh.

    Kubiak had already made up his mind before the playoffs that the 1991 season would be his last, that he would retire whenever the ride came to an end.

    “And all of a sudden, there I am in the game,” the former Broncos signal-caller recalled. “It was kind of ironic for me, (spending) all those years backing up John, here I am playing in the AFC Championship Game and had a really good chance to win.”

    Gary literally went into that contest cold. Although he does remember it being surprisingly warm for upstate New York in mid-January.

    “It was an unseasonable 32 degrees in Buffalo,”  he laughed. “I couldn’t have played if it was cold. My back was too bad. I’m glad the Good Lord gave me a game I could play in.”

    Kubes played admirably, too. No. 8 completed 11 of 12 throws for 136 yards. His touchdown run with 1:46 left got the Broncos to within 10-6 before the extra point.

    Denver recovered the ensuing onside kick, but, alas, on the next play, Steve Sewell fumbled the ball back to Buffalo. Three missed field goals at Rich Stadium proved fatal. The Broncos ultimately fell, 10-7.

    “Our defense was really good (in ’91) — a lot like this Broncos team,” Kubiak said. “We were in a lot of low-scoring games. We missed a few plays in the second half. We had ourselves in a position there at the end and unfortunately, the ballgame got away from us … we had our opportunity, but it just didn’t end the right way.”

    How can this one end better? Kubiak likes that Payton doubled down on Stidham publicly, and almost immediately, after getting the worst injury news imaginable.

    “I used to tell my teams, when you’re a coach, you’re going to go through some QB issues and lose a QB,” Kubiak explained. “And I used to always remind guys that when you start to worry about what’s going on at other spots on the team, then you don’t take care of your job. Just stay focused on your job, what you do. ‘We’ve got Stiddy here, he’s going to be ready to play.’ You have to stay focused and (then do) what you have to do to help him out.”

    Bubby Brister went 4-0 as Elway’s No. 2 in the fall of 1998, keeping things afloat as the Broncos eventually repeated as Super Bowl champions. Brister told me Tuesday that he thinks 90% of the battle for Stiddy, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, will be half mental.

    “I believe Jarrett knows he can do the job,” Brister said via text. “He also knows he has a great team and staff around him. Not to mention Sean Payton is in his ear, one of the best ever at calling plays.

    “To top it off, (there’s a) big advantage playing at home with our awesome fans and at Mile High. Just go play! Just go do your job.”

    Even if that means jumping on a moving train. Sportradar says Stidham is only the seventh NFL QB since 1950 to start a playoff game during a season in which he never started once.

    The last three guys who’ve been thrust into that position since 2000 — Joe Webb (Minnesota, 2012), Connor Cook (Oakland, 2016) and Taylor Heinicke (Washington, 2020) — went 0-3. Their average stat line? 216 passing yards, one passing TD, two picks.

    Their teams scored 10 points, 14 points and 23 points, respectively. That’s about 16 per game. Which is asking an awful, awful lot of your defense. Even one as good as Vance Joseph’s.

    “He’ll be all right,” Kubiak said of Stidham. “The thing I always go back to is, it’s all about the team.

    “Denver’s got a great football team. Stidham, that’s Sean’s hand-picked guy. He trusts him. And he’s on a great football team. It’ll be fun to watch the young man. He’ll do a great job.”

    Eight no valley low enough. And just because Frank Reich was a leprechaun doesn’t mean you can’t get lucky all over again.

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    Sean Keeler

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  • Position coach Isaac Shewmaker is the young mind behind Broncos’ edge-rusher success

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    The youngest coach in Dove Valley also looks the most out of place, by sheer physicality. This isn’t Isaac Shewmaker’s fault. It’s a compliment, more than anything.

    On Thursdays, the 29-year-old Shewmaker bends down to mimic a snap and leads one of the best pass-rush units in football in get-off drills. Luminaries bend before him: 6-foot-2, 246-pound second-year reserve Jonah Elliss tenses; 6-foot-3 All-Pro Nik Bonitto waits; 257-pound Jonathon Cooper, whose muscles have muscles, toes. They all snap forward at Shewmaker’s bark. At his beck.

    At a Broncos outside-linebackers coach who stands five-foot-something, and played a little high school ball back in Kentucky. No college.

    “Obviously, God gave me the brains to do it,” Shewmaker says, sitting on a bench after the Broncos’ Thursday practice. “But not the body to do it.”

    But ah, those brains. They have a knack for making the complex seem easy, in a Vance Joseph defense that presents a lot that’s complex. Elliss calls Shewmaker “just super smart.” Practice-squad reserve Garrett Nelson raves about the coach’s “high-level IQ.” Rookie Que Robinson says the young Shewmaker is “smart as hell.”

    “You’d probably walk past him in the grocery store and wouldn’t think he coached, probably, one of the top outside-linebacker groups,” Robinson cracks. “But yeah, shoot, man, he gets it done for us. And he’d probably give us the shirt off his back, at the end of the day.”

    You know Joseph, the defensive coordinator primed for a head-coaching gig. You know 30-year-old quarterbacks coach Davis Webb, who’s on the fast-track to a play-calling job soon enough. Meet Shewmaker, the most promising mind in Denver’s building who you probably have never heard of.

    Just ask reigning Defensive Player of the Year Pat Surtain II.

    “He’s got a brilliant football mind,” Surtain says. “And he’s gon’ get one of those job promotions … like a D-coordinator, or something like that, very soon.”

    Quietly, Joseph’s defense experienced a large and partly unexpected turnover in leadership this offseason, after Denver fired inside linebackers coach Greg Manusky in January — and then fired outside linebackers coach Michael Wilhoite a month later after Wilhoite was charged with a now-dropped felony assault of a police officer. The young Shewmaker was waiting in the wings, fresh off just two years in defensive quality control in Denver. And in his first season as an NFL position coach, Shewmaker has presided over the driving group in a pass-rush that just broke its own franchise record for sacks (64).

    That room is chock-full on talent, of course. The Broncos are set to pay Bonitto and Cooper over $160 million in the next few seasons for their services, and Elliss is a 2023 third-round pick. The room’s also chock-full on personalities. Bonitto hosts impromptu dance-circles in the middle of group drills, and Cooper bleats loud and often.

    “I know it’s kind of a big ask to kinda wrangle our room” Nelson says.

    Shewmaker is a young shepherd. Really, though, he has been building for this since he could walk. At 6 years old, he announced at his kindergarten graduation that he intended to become the head football coach at the University of Kentucky.

    He loves the game — particularly defense — because it is a chess match. And Shewmaker teaches it as such.

    “If they understand why they have to be here because of who it affects, then they buy into it more,” Shewmaker says. “When you just say, ‘Well, you have to set the edge because that’s what the piece of paper says,’ they have a harder time buying into it. So part of my whole thing is, ever since I started was – learning it on a level where I can teach all 11.”

    He gave up playing for good after high school, when he suffered a variety of concussions in football and then got drilled by a 92 mph fastball to the noggin his senior year playing baseball. Doctors told him he should stop. (“I was like, ‘That’s probably fair,’ ” Shewmaker acknowledges.) So he went to Kentucky and became an equipment manager, resolving to simply do anything he could to get in the building.

    Within a month, the program assigned him to help out with defensive backs. Within a year, ex-Kentucky defensive backs coach Derrick Ansley took a DBs job at Alabama and convinced Shewmaker — a student — to transfer. Shewmaker became a defensive assistant on Alabama head coach Nick Saban’s staff as a college sophomore in 2016. The rest is recent history.

    In Denver, now, this Broncos edge-rusher group has answered the call at nearly every bell, down to the depth. Elliss has waded through an injury-muddled season to rack up 1.5 sacks and a couple of tackles for loss in his past three games. Reserve Dondrea Tillman has rounded into a legitimate star in his role, with four sacks and two interceptions in his last 10 games. Robinson, a 2025 fourth-round pick who was thought of as a mostly developmental prospect, contributed two quarterback hits in rotational reps in a Week 16 loss to the Jaguars.

    Shewmaker, Robinson says, helps his group focus from not getting “scatterbrained” inside the detail of a formation.

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    Luca Evans

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  • How many coverage breakdowns have Broncos had recently? ‘Too many,’ Sean Payton says.

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    The first sign of trouble came with a not-so-heated discussion, before the floodgates truly opened. A simple 9-yard out from Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence hit to Brian Thomas Jr. to further set up an end-of-half field goal, and he fell out of bounds, easy. Too easy. Broncos cornerback Pat Surtain II came over to discuss with safety P.J. Locke. Surtain’s hands splayed out. Something was amiss.

    The second sign of trouble came with a punch to the mouth, with Denver already on the ropes. Jaguars wideout Parker Washington took another quick out in the third quarter, made Riley Moss miss, made Talanoa Hufanga miss, and strolled 63 yards down Mile High Lane. A touchdown later, and defensive end John Franklin-Myers trudged past a sideline of slouched shoulders, tugging off his helmet and going to chuck it. He thought better of it.

    The third sign of trouble came with the finishing blow. Moss had Washington contained on a third-down grab in the fourth quarter, until he didn’t.  Washington spun away again for a 24-yard gain. Moss lingered on his knees for a beat. Then took his palm and smacked the ground in front of him.

    Keeler: Broncos Country, don’t blame NFL referees for loss to Jaguars. Blame tackling.

    How many passing-game breakdowns have there been in recent weeks, for these Broncos?

    “Too many,” head coach Sean Payton said, postgame.

    Defensive players largely shrugged this off, after the Broncos’ three-month win streak was snapped Sunday night in a 34-20 loss to the Jaguars. Because what else is them for there to do? Denver’s still a 12-win team, as linebacker Alex Singleton pointed out postgame

    “I’m not going to sit here and let you guys (expletive) on our parade,” Singleton chuckled. He grinned. His eyes didn’t really grin. “We have two games to go to be the number-one seed in the AFC.”

    There’s no mistaking it, though: these Broncos have issues on the back-end to fix across those next two games and beyond, to play as deep as they’d like to. Lawrence picked defensive coordinator’s Vance Joseph scheme apart for four quarters, often sniffing out third-down blitzes and smoothly depositing the ball to his playmakers in a 23-of-36, 279-yard, three-touchdown performance. Payton said postgame that such a porous defensive performance “better be” an anomaly, and there’s plenty of reason to believe so.

    Broncos’ 11-game winning streak snapped by Jaguars, AFC playoff race tightens

    Look deeper, though, and Sunday was not as much an anomaly as an eruption of bubbling issues. In the last four weeks, quarterbacks have combined for an 89.7 rating against Denver’s defense. The Commanders’ Marcus Mariota freewheeled his way on some zone-read concepts against the Broncos a few weeks back. The Packers’ Jordan Love dinked and dunked with abandon in the first half in Week 15. Lawrence blew the top off on Sunday.

    They’ve all exploited the same nagging issues that haunted Joseph’s unit down the stretch of 2024 — as teams have targeted Bronco linebackers and safeties in advantageous matchups for a solid month. Here’s a quick roundup of tight-end performances against Denver’s defense in the last five weeks:

    — Chiefs’ Travis Kelce in Week 11: 9 catches, 91 yards, touchdown.

    — Commanders’ Zach Ertz in Week 13: 10 catches, 106 yards.

    — Raiders’ Brock Bowers in Week 14: 4 catches, 46 yards, touchdown.

    — Packers’ Luke Musgrave in Week 15: 4 catches, 52 yards.

    Another matchup-problem gadget weapon reared his head Sunday, as the Jaguars’ Brenton Strange went for five catches for 39 yards. He ran away from Broncos linebacker Dre Greenlaw for a 23-yard gain midway through the second quarter. A few plays later, he boxed out Locke — with a bit of an obvious push-off — for a short touchdown.

    “They scheme up plays pretty nicely,” Locke said, asked about problems containing tight ends and running backs in the passing game. “That’s it.

    “I don’t think it’s problems. I don’t think it’s problems. That’s stuff we just gotta handle.”

    Jacksonville head coach Liam Coen, though, repeatedly and obviously aimed at Bronco holes in coverage Sunday with a variety of targets. Greenlaw has been a step slow on a couple routes in recent weeks. Locke was effective against the run in his first start of the season at safety, but was picked on on a late-first-half field-goal drive by Jacksonville. Communication errors abounded, too, as Jacksonville went eight-of-15 on third downs.

    Renck: Broncos find out hard way that reaching their goals will not be easy. Can they handle prosperity?

    On a short week before travelling to Kansas City for a Christmas Day game, the defense will gather to watch film Monday, Singleton said. They have overcome some early-season missed handoffs in match coverage before. And Singleton, for one, wants his unit to feel it, as he said.

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    Luca Evans

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  • Raiders linked to rising coordinator as Pete Carroll replacement

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    When the Las Vegas Raiders hired Pete Carroll to be their head coach in January, it was hard to imagine him getting fired within 12 months. He is a highly accomplished coach at both the NCAA and NFL levels, and as most remember, he guided the Seattle Seahawks to the Super Bowl championship in the 2013 season and came very close to winning another one the following year.

    But the Raiders are tied for the NFL’s worst record at 2-11 and have a seven-game losing streak, and there are rumors that Carroll could be on the hot seat. They already fired Chip Kelly, another accomplished coach whom they hired to be Carroll’s offensive coordinator, after their Week 12 loss to the Cleveland Browns, and one has to wonder what direction they may head on if they want to give Carroll the axe.

    ESPN insider Dan Graziano wrote in a recent article that he feels Vance Joseph, the Denver Broncos‘ defensive coordinator, could end up replacing Carroll.

    “Joseph seems to be the name we’re hearing the most, because of Denver’s defensive success and his previous head coach experience (with Denver, oddly enough),” Graziano wrote. “People close to the situation point out that Joseph never had a stable quarterback situation in his first head coaching stint and didn’t have full autonomy over the hiring of his staff, so it would seem unfair to completely hold his 11-21 record against him. I think he gets several interviews and could be a strong candidate in a place such as Las Vegas, should that job come open.”

    Read more: ESPN Provides Eye-Opening Prediction Ahead of Bills-Patriots Showdown

    After a brief playing career in the NFL during the 1990s, Joseph spent many years as an assistant coach at the college and pro levels before becoming the Broncos’ head coach for the 2017 and 2018 seasons when they were rebuilding following Peyton Manning’s retirement. Denver fired him at the end of the 2018 campaign, and after four years as the Arizona Cardinals’ defensive coordinator, he returned to Denver in that same capacity.

    Denver’s defense has dramatically improved under Joseph’s guidance. This season, the team is fourth in points allowed and third in total yards allowed, and even though the Broncos’ offense has been rather average overall, their defense has propelled them to an 11-2 record, which ties them with the New England Patriots for the NFL’s best record.

    Las Vegas’ defense hasn’t been quite as bad as its offense this year, but it has been fairly weak. Perhaps Joseph could make something significant happen on that side of the football in 2026, especially with a superstar pass rusher such as Maxx Crosby.

    Read more: Raiders’ Geno Smith Receives Big Update About NFL Future

    Given Raiders quarterback Geno Smith’s substandard play this season and the uncertainty about his future with the team, perhaps it would be best for the franchise to embrace winning mostly with defense, as the Broncos have. Joseph could perhaps help build such a culture and resurrect the franchise after some two decades of mostly ineptitude.

    For more on the Raiders and general NFL news, head over to Newsweek Sports.

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  • Broncos-Chiefs report card: Vance Joseph’s defense shines; Bo Nix comes up clutch again

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    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.

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    Luca Evans

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  • Broncos-Chiefs scouting report: Banged-up Denver contends with Patrick Mahomes, desperate Kansas City team

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    Chiefs (5-4) at Broncos (8-2)

    When: Sunday, 2:25 p.m.

    Where: Empower Field at Mile High Stadium

    TV/radio: CBS, 850 AM/94.1 FM

    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

    RELATED: Broncos analysis: To unleash Bo Nix and unlock offense, Sean Payton must start at the beginning

    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.

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  • Sean Payton: Broncos aren’t ‘looking to send a message’ at NFL trade deadline

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    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).

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  • Broncos’ Sean Payton hoped Giants would make QB change from Russell Wilson to Jaxson Dart ‘long after our game’

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    For a second straight year, Empower Field didn’t see a Russell Wilson revenge game.

    But Sean Payton was evidently hoping for one.

    The Giants benched the former Broncos quarterback after just three games this season, turning instead to first-round rookie Jaxson Dart, who continued a stretch of generally strong play with a 283-yard, three-touchdown performance against Denver on Sunday. For three quarters, he gave Broncos coordinator Vance Joseph fits, sliding laterally side-to-side in the pocket to negate a juiced-up Broncos pass rush. And postgame, Payton offered a note of praise to Dart — and, perhaps, a note of shade to Wilson.

    “They found a little spark with that quarterback,” Payton said.

    “I was talking to John Mara not too long ago,” he continued, speaking of the Giants’ owner, “and I said, ‘We were hoping that change would have happened long after our game.’”

    Wilson threw for 3,070 yards with 26 touchdowns and eight interceptions in his lone season under Payton in 2023, and then was benched for Jarrett Stidham at the end of the year. The Broncos, of course, then took on a record $85 million in dead salary-cap charges just to cut bait with Wilson.

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  • Broncos’ Jonathon Cooper not fazed by Giants rookie QB Jaxson Dart: ‘Ain’t nothing we haven’t seen’

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    The kings of New York are here, and they are 22 and 23 years old. In the span of three short weeks, a rookie quarterback and a rookie running back have revitalized the downtrodden Big Blue with sheer frat-bro energy. They exchange vibrational communication by touching heads like baby elephants, and the quarterback sports a diamond necklace, and the running back does flips in the end zone after touchdowns.

    Their names are Jaxson Dart and Cam Skattebo, and this New York Giants duo appears to fear nothing. Certainly not head trauma. Dart flung himself noggin-first into an Eagles defender in Week 5, and has been evaluated for a concussion three times in four games. Skattebo got himself ready for games at Arizona State by pounding his helmet against a brick wall. They have infused Jersey with a little Gen-Z flair, and their swagger was enough to bury the reigning Super Bowl champion Eagles on Thursday Night Football last week.

    But a stable of Broncos await in Denver on Sunday, ready to kick. This is confidence on confidence. Denver’s locker room has “our Skattebo,” as defensive lineman John Franklin-Myers pointed, in Jonathon Cooper — a muscled-up 27-year-old former seventh-rounder who came out from the locker room at every training camp practice roaring at nobody in particular. And who just won the AFC Defensive Player of the Week. And is part of a Broncos pass-rush that fears nothing, either.

    Certainly not the Giants’ 22-year-old rookie quarterback with his reckless legs and golden flow.

    “I mean, he’s a young guy,” Cooper said of Dart, his nose curling up in a sneer. “He’s feeling himself a lil’ bit. He’s out there running around. He’s got the chain on. He’s dancing. I feel like everybody needs something, you know.

    “But we’ve went against QBs who have ran around in the pocket and who’ve tried to do stuff with their legs,” Cooper said. “So, ain’t nothing we haven’t seen.”

    Skattebo and Dart will bring a heap of earned chutzpah on the plane with them to Denver Sunday. But this Broncos’ defense’s own confidence at every level — and its play-caller’s — is as high as it’s been all season, after sacking Jets quarterback Justin Fields nine times last Sunday. The stat-sheet from London is still burning: -10 net passing yards for the Jets, a fact that prompted a hat-tip from Giants head coach Brian Daboll on Wednesday.

    “They’re just really good,” Daboll said. “They play good coverage, complement it with the front. They disguise well. I mean, they’re as good as it gets right now.”

    Since taking over from former Bronco Russell Wilson in Week 3, Dart has played largely excellent football in a 2-1 stretch, with wins over the Chargers and Eagles. The former Ole Miss QB’s legs have become a major engine to New York’s offense, with 167 rushing yards in that span. He’s escaped pressure with aplomb.

    The Broncos’ pass-rush, however, has seen two of the league’s best scrambling quarterbacks the past two weeks. They turned the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts into a thrower in Week 5 — two carries for three yards — and turned Philadelphia’s offense one-dimensional because of it. Then they turned the Jets’ Fields into, frankly, a shell of an NFL quarterback in Week 6.

    It’s one of head coach Sean Payton’s favorite sayings: Confidence is born from demonstrated ability. This Broncos front has it.

    “We play one of the best quarterbacks twice a year, every single year,” Cooper said Wednesday, likely referring to the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes. “So once you go against that, you kinda get a feel of the game. And, you know what you need to do. You gotta make ‘em feel uncomfortable in the pocket.

    “So, you can’t let ‘em get that confidence and that ego going.”

    Their ego’s going, plenty. And deservedly so. The ability of the Broncos’ core four pass-rushers up front to win one-on-ones — Cooper, NFL sack leader Nik Bonitto, Zach Allen, Franklin-Myers — and the secondary’s ability to win in man coverage on the back-end has given coordinator Vance Joseph the ingredients and the gall of a mad scientist.

    With Denver backed up in their own territory and up two late in the fourth quarter against New York, at the short end of the stick relative to the clock, Joseph sent the house on three of the Jets’ last four downs. Sack. Incompletion. Seven-yard completion. Sack. Ballgame.

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  • Broncos-Jets report card: Sean Payton’s offensive slump, sloppy special-teams play nearly down Denver

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    The Broncos narrowly avoided a baffling loss to the Jets in London on Sunday with another fourth-quarter defensive stand, improving to 4-2 through six games after a 13-11 victory. Here’s The Denver Post’s report card from the day.

    OFFENSE — D+

    Sean Payton got Bo Nix rolling in the first quarter Sunday, calling for a bunch of quick throws over the middle. Nix looked every bit the same guy who torched the Eagles in the fourth quarter last week, dicing up the Jets for 112 first-quarter yards and a beautiful end-of-quarter drive. And then, in a baffling combination of play-calling and execution, Payton downshifted Denver’s offense into purgatory for three quarters.

    Nix had just a handful of completions after the first quarter. The Broncos had their worst rushing game of the year, with just 40 yards on 14 carries for the steady J.K. Dobbins. Star receiver Courtland Sutton finished with just one catch for 17 yards on three targets, and Denver had just one first-quarter touchdown to Nate Adkins on a secondary breakdown to show for themselves.

    DEFENSE — A+

    This was a “defensive team” today, as Sean Payton said postgame. And as Denver fumbled its offensive identity away with Troy Franklin’s first-quarter giveaway, the Broncos’ pass-rush scooped an entire organization up again, as Vance Joseph’s attack has so often done. Jets quarterback Justin Fields looked like a fawn in the headlights of a London double-decker bus, and the Broncos finished with a ridiculous nine sacks. That’s tied for the second-most in a single game in franchise history, according to StatMuse.

    Don’t forget about the Broncos’ secondary, either, as Pat Surtain II held another top receiver in purgatory in the Jets’ Garrett Wilson. Denver’s linebackers had one of their best games of the season, too, as the Jets’ running backs had just one catch for minus-1 yard and tight end Mason Taylor had one catch for 2 yards. And Talanoa Hufanga continued to fly around like a calamity let loose from Pandora’s box, adding a key third-down pass-breakup on the Jets’ final offensive drive.

    SPECIAL TEAMS — D

    No way else to put it: Darren Rizzi is off to a bad start in his Broncos tenure. There was the Week 2 leverage incident. There have been consistently meh returns on kickoffs for Marvin Mims Jr. and breakdowns in kick coverage. And Week 6 in London was the worst day yet, as the Jets nearly stole a game thanks to Jets special teams coordinator Chris Banjo — an assistant on Denver’s staff last year — out-executing Rizzi for four quarters. New York had a 72-yard kickoff return, outgained a tentative Marvin Mims by 89 combined yards across punt and kickoff returns, and beat the Broncos on one fourth-and-1 fake punt that Rizzi had sniffed out.

    COACHING — D

    Vance Joseph is single-handedly pulling this one up from an F. Again, the Broncos’ defensive coordinator mixed in a variety of pressures and went with a gutsy all-out blitz on a first-down sack on the Jets’ last drive, matching his game-calling perfectly with the Jets’ utter lack of juice in the passing game.

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  • LB Justin Strnad believes Broncos’ struggles to cover RBs are ‘miscommunication,’ not a lack of ability

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    Justin Strnad has seen the discourse.

    By this point, it’s no national secret that the Broncos’ current linebacker corps has produced less-than-stellar results in coverage. In two losses this season, Colts running back Jonathan Taylor and the Chargers’ Omarion Hampton left Denver’s defense dizzy on wheel routes. And the public’s assumption on such plays, Strnad acknowledges, is that it’s automatically the fault of him or fellow starting ILB Alex Singleton. Sometimes it is.

    “But then there’s also times,” Strnad told The Denver Post in the locker room Thursday, “where it’s like, I don’t really know what they’re talking about a lot of the time.”

    Remember when Taylor flared out of the backfield and whizzed away for a 43-yard gain in the Colts’ win in Week 2? Remember when Hampton got free on a fourth-quarter screen and sped for 22 yards in the Chargers’ win in Week 3? Both plays, specifically, were “100% miscommunication,” as Strnad told The Post.

    Would free-agent add Dre Greenlaw — stuck on injured reserve until at least Week 7 — be great to have right now, heading into this matchup with the Eagles and reigning NFL Offensive Player of the Year Saquon Barkley? Of course. But Denver’s dropped coverages on running backs are more a matter of overall defensive communication, Strnad believes, than a lack of ability in current ILB personnel.

    “You get people get wrapped in like, ‘Oh, he’s this in coverage, he’s that in coverage,’” Strnad told The Post. “Like you said, I think Dre was great — has been great in his career all-around, as a player. But I think all our ‘backers can cover, to be honest with you.

    “A lot of the stuff that you see on TV where a guy’s wide open, that might be more communication (than) it is to someone’s coverage ability.”

    Regardless of the reason, the fact remains: There were back-to-back losses where head coach Sean Payton pointed to coverage breakdowns against running backs. The result was a combined 109 receiving yards for Taylor and Hampton across two weeks. Denver can’t afford such mistakes against Barkley, who didn’t feature heavily as a pass-catcher in his first season in Philadelphia but has caught 14 balls through four weeks in 2025.

    The Broncos cleaned up their underneath coverages against a thoroughly inept Bengals offense in Week 4. Still, Bengals back Chase Brown had three catches for 31 yards. Sunday’s matchup against Philadelphia could be a major precedent-setter for the Broncos’ ability to shadow a mismatch back, one of a specific few phases that’s vital to Denver’s improvement.

    “I don’t even think it’s anything about ability of the DBs, linebackers,” outside linebacker Nik Bonitto told The Post in late September. “I feel like it’s more of just mental errors of them being open, more than us having to actually guard them.

    “So I feel like that’s just something we gotta look at the film room and see, and just being able to correct those type of things. Because obviously, more and more teams are going to start doing it if we don’t have an answer for it.”

    The answer, as Strnad broke down, is simple in concept and complicated in execution. Some defenses rely heavily on spot drop coverages, a type of zone where defenders backtrack to a specific area and read the quarterback’s eyes. Vance Joseph’s defense in Denver, though, contains heavy doses of match coverage — a blend of zone and man-to-man — where defenders match to specific skill players in their areas. It’s key for defenders to communicate motion by opposing offenses, Strnad explained, and to tag over mid-play on receivers.

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  • Broncos’ Mike McGlinchey on cleaning up mistakes: ‘It has to be this week’

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    Broncos right tackle Mike McGlinchey knows two things can be true at the same time.

    First, there are 13 games left in the season, starting with Denver’s Monday night matchup against Cincinnati at Empower Field. That’s a lot of time for teams’ fortunes to change, identities to develop, strengths to show through or weaknesses to get exposed.

    Also, though, there are already three games in the rearview mirror, and the Broncos have lost two of them despite never trailing a second in the fourth quarter.

    So, there’s time to find fixes. But also, the time is now.

    “I think it’s just a mix of understanding what went wrong,” the Denver captain told The Denver Post last week. “Sometimes, winning can suffocate or hide your problems. So all losing does is add pressure to get it right.

    “It’s Week 4, we’ve got a lot of football left, and we’ve got a lot of time to clean this stuff up, but it has to be this week.”

    Broncos LT Garett Bolles off to hot start in pursuit of NFL’s inaugural ‘Protector of the Year’ trophy

    McGlinchey, like head coach Sean Payton and defensive coordinator Vance Joseph, repeatedly talked about the Broncos’ need to commit fewer penalties this week. The Denver offense has had 10 second-half drives this season with a chance to extend a one-score lead to two, but has scored just six points, failed each time to create a two-score lead and been penalized on six of those possessions.

    “The biggest thing for teams to start winning is to learn how to stop losing,” McGlinchey said. “The penalties, I keep harping on that. Those details, we can’t be harming ourselves and not putting ourselves in positions to win football games. The past two weeks — in Indy, we did that well on offense, but there was still that lull for a quarter or a quarter and a half. Last week, we came out and didn’t do much well at all outside of three or four drives.

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  • Broncos-Chargers report card: Bo Nix, Sean Payton’s offense can’t connect late

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    In the second straight Sunday with a gut-wrenching loss, the Broncos fell three games to the back of the pack of the AFC West with a 23-20 loss to the Chargers. Here’s The Post’s report card from the loss.

    OFFENSE — C-

    Where to even begin? The Broncos’ first three drives Sunday went for three straight three-and-outs, a haunted house of penalties, ineffective run-blocking and personnel scattering on and off the field like lab rats. Up until a two-minute drill to end the first half, Denver had exactly 42 yards of offense. And then Sean Payton cast magic.

    Bo Nix’s 52-yard touchdown bomb to Courtland Sutton on a fourth-and-2 opened the floodgates, and J.K. Dobbins got rolling in the second half after finishing with negative yardage in the first. But Denver bungled five — five — chances to extend their lead to two scores in the second half after taking resounding control of the game in the second half. The final one was a killer: Nix overthrowing Sutton streaking down the right sideline on a third-and-10 by a few fingertips. An image that’ll live in Broncos fans’ heads for a long time.

    DEFENSE — B+

    The demise of the Broncos’ pass-rush was greatly exaggerated.

    Denver had three first-quarter sacks and never let up on Justin Herbert all day, even when the Chargers’ offense got going. It takes a significant amount of force to keep the 6-foot-6, 236-pound Herbert on the turf, and yet Dondrea Tillman popped him so hard in the fourth quarter that Herbert lay for a few beats after a third-down completion. The Chargers’ offensive line seemed to be simply waving feathers at the Broncos’ front in the second half, with Nik Bonitto blowing up star Los Angeles tackle Joe Alt all afternoon. But Herbert’s iron-clad frame kept firing, and the Chargers’ quarterback diced up the Broncos’ secondary on a couple of fourth-quarter drives to finish with 300 yards on the day.

    SPECIAL TEAMS — B-

    Darren Rizzi’s follow-up to a Week 2 disaster started with … more disaster. As the defense got off the field on the Chargers’ second drive of the day, outside linebacker Nik Bonitto somehow lined up in the neutral zone in punt coverage, giving the ball back on an offsides penalty. Punter Jeremy Crawshaw’s first boot fluttered outside the 20. Chargers punt returner Demario Davis reversed a second-quarter punt for 33 yards, too.

    But Rizzi’s units pulled together nicely over the course of Sunday — and had a massive third-quarter swing on a strip-fumble by Jonah Elliss. Marvin Mims Jr. continued to feel out lanes in the return game, finishing with 56 yards on two punt returns, and Crawshaw had a banner day with a 47.1 average on seven punts.

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