ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — When the Broncos dropped their first three home games as a favorite, squandering halftime leads in all of them, the season appeared doomed. The math of reaching a winning record, the first since 2016, became complicated and the playoffs required the Hubble Telescope to see.
Then something weird happened. The Broncos fixed their defense – credit to coordinator Vance Joseph, who was understandably eviscerated after the Dolphins debacle – and found their identity on offense.
So coming off a bye week, 3-5 feels like hope, buoyed by two straight wins, including ending the ugly 16-game losing streak to the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. Broncos coach Sean Payton and staff took a breath during the bye – which allows for players to rest and recover and coaches to refresh and self-scout – and they return with an opportunity to change the narrative.
Over the next two weeks, the Broncos will be featured, playing at Buffalo on Monday night on Denver7 and hosting the Vikings the following Sunday night.
“Clearly, I feel like we are better today than we were four to five weeks ago. You can see that in a lot of ways,” Payton said, citing improved rush and red zone defense and the team’s emerging ground game. “We are going to play national TV games. Those will be important for us.”
Before the Broncos players disappeared to parts unknown – many actually stayed around – they talked about reaching the playoffs. Defensive end Zach Allen said the Broncos should be able to make a run and running back Javonte Williams mentioned pushing for a Super Bowl. Cornerback Pat Surtain II admitted, “This is only a start. This is the beginning stage to building towards team success. We have to keep working, getting better. Obviously, the road doesn’t get easier, it gets tougher.”
The Broncos are 8-point underdogs vs. the Bills, who are 7-3 at home in November with quarterback Josh Allen, including a 20-3 ear boxing of Denver in a windy, cold 2019 affair. Payton spent the past week watching film and determining tendencies in how he employs players and lineups. Payton is 10-3 after his last 13 byes. The offense continues making strides but is not a finished product. Denver averages 21.5 points per game, ranks 11th in rush yards (116.5) and 28th in passing (185.4). The Broncos pushed the Packers and Chiefs around at the line of scrimmage, a physicality defined by a line built to run block with Garett Bolles, Ben Powers, Lloyd Cushenberry, Quinn Meinerz and Mike McGlinchey.
“It takes all 22 guys to commit to a run game. It takes a defense that controls the flow of the game, gets the opponent’s offense off the field on third down. And to be able to run efficiently and convert on third down ourselves,” McGlinchey said. “That’s the formula to winning football games in the NFL.”
This is the type of offense the Broncos talked about all spring and summer – leaning on a brutish attack with play-action strikes sprinkled into the mix. But they largely ignored it for it several weeks.
And that’s brings up the discussion of quarterback Russell Wilson. He boasts 16 touchdowns and four interceptions, leaving him on pace for 34 touchdown passes and nine picks. Those numbers are remarkably like his salad days in Seattle. However Wilson has faltered with situational awareness at times, fumbling before half or at game’s end or failing to run north and south rather than trying to outrun rushers around the end. Overall, Payton told me he’s been pleased with Wilson, who turns 35 on Nov. 29.
“I think the most important thing is how we're playing as a team and how we're playing as an offense. The things we’ve seen that I’ve been encouraged with are obviously the off-schedule plays. He does a great job working the pocket, climbing the pocket. He makes a real good throw to (Jerry) Jeudy last week doing that, Courtland (Sutton) the same way. And then continuing to look at reducing the turnovers, managing the game the right way, understanding who we’re playing and how we’re playing it,” Payton said when I asked him about Wilson’s season on Monday.
“That transition for him so far – he’s in his third offense now in three years. Every day he's working at it and working his tail off. I would say there’s a lot of things we’ve been impressed with that he’s doing very well and there’s some things he wants to improve on and collectively we want to offensively.”
When Wilson returns to practice this week, Jeudy will be there. The Broncos held firm on their high demands for the receiver, electing not to trade him last Tuesday despite interest. An ESPN report said the Broncos were offered a third and fifth rounder for the former Alabama star.
“He’s an important piece to what we are doing,” Payton said of Jeudy, who scored his first touchdown of the season vs. the Chiefs. “We think he’s a guy who is dynamic and is going to be very important for us going forward.”
That said, there remains the matter of Marvin Mims Jr. He is fiber optics in a wireless world. Mims has the Broncos’ only 100-yard receiving game this season and boasted 242 after the first four weeks. And yet, he has two receptions on three targets for four yards over the last four games.
That must change, right?
“How do we get him more touches and how do we incorporate him more into what we’re doing offensively? I am sitting here looking at a notepad with his jersey number on it in front of me,” Payton said. “And that’s our job as coaches. We really believe we have a good, young, talented player. There’s a lot of other players on offense that deserve the same type of attention relative to play design. But we are going to work our tails off to move that needle where he’s getting opportunities.”
