The Broncos pulled off a miracle Sunday at Empower Field, scoring a franchise-record 33 points in the fourth quarter to stun the New York Giants, 33-32. Here’s a look at the win as Denver moved to 5-2 after seven weeks.
1. Broncos HC Sean Payton will always try to find a way to put a little more hay in the barn. Sunday against the Giants, it paid off big.
Courtland Sutton had an inkling of what was coming when Sean Payton summoned him late in the week.
The veteran Broncos receiver sat down in Payton’s office, and the coach started talking.
Fast.
“If we get into this situation in the game. I’ve got a play. And it’s going to work,” Sutton recalled Payton telling him. “Just trust me.”
He started showing Sutton clips of other teams succeeding in late-half and late-game scenarios.
“He has such a unique mind when it comes to football,” Sutton said. “The plays he was showing me wasn’t the play we ran. It was just the concept and an idea of what he envisioned. …
“He just sees it in such a — it’s like a different language. If you tried to explain it to someone, you’d have to sit down, and it would need to be, like, a full breakdown of what he’s thinking.
“He sees it, he’s like, ‘OK, this is how we’re going to do it,’ and then you’ve got to just trust it and follow it. Trust that it’s going to be there.’”
The Broncos installed the play during their Saturday walk-through.
They’d already run 74 others Sunday against the Giants when quarterback Bo Nix hit Marvin Mims Jr. for 30 yards — it looked like Nix might have actually been throwing the deep in-breaker to Sutton on a “dagger” concept — to move the Broncos to the edge of field goal range amid a frantic finish.
Giants star Brian Burns didn’t get to the defensive side of the line of scrimmage quickly enough and got penalized for it. New York took its final timeout with 18 seconds left.
Turns out, Denver was set up perfectly to run the play.
“You get in those fastball situations with however much time left in the clock, no timeouts,” Payton said. “We walk-throughed it, went through it, and sure enough, it came up. The (correct) hash, everything.”
He sent the call in to Nix. Nix relayed it to the Broncos in the huddle.
Sutton hardly had time to realize it was the one they’d just gone over the day before. But as he motioned across the formation and saw Payton’s firehose of words about field position, hash, down and distance unfold before him, he thought, “Dang, this joint should work.”
Sutton had started on the right side in a bunch formation with receiver Pat Bryant and tight end Nate Adkins. When he motioned, cornerback Andru Phillips went with him, indicating man coverage.
Sutton settled in the left slot. On the snap, he started up the field and then cut behind fellow receiver Troy Franklin, who was running a needle route across the field.
Franklin’s already been called for offensive pass interference previously this season, but he did a good job of creating traffic for Phillips to work through without stopping his route or overtly running into the Giants’ corner.
The natural paths of their routes and Sutton’s positioning in the slot left him plenty of space to widen out between Phillips and the sideline.
Nix put a perfect back-shoulder throw on him, and Sutton hauled it in.
Just like that, a 60-yard field goal attempt became a 39-yarder for Lutz.
“For that play to be the last play before we kicked the field goal is so crazy because I’m thinking it might be in the first quarter, might be in the second quarter,” Sutton said. “Might be an end-of-half situation. For it to be the play that puts us in position to go kick a game-winning situation is amazing. It’s dope to have a coach that, you hear all the time, the hay is never in the barn. With Coach, it’s literally never in the barn.
“I’ve been a part of plays put in Saturday. I’ve been a part of plays put in Sunday morning. I’ve seen it all, and I’d say for the most part, like 99.8% of the time, those plays work because he sees something.”
There are few things in the job Payton takes more satisfaction in than finding something late in the week that makes a difference. He romanticizes late nights in the office — candles, incense and a stream of video clips, all of them he’s already seen likely countless times.
It doesn’t just matter in the moment, though. It’s also one of the ways Payton ends up instilling confidence in his players.
“Players have been telling me about that all year,” tight end Evan Engram, a spring free agent addition, told The Post. “Sometimes he just starts cookin’ at the end of the week. He’ll start putting in plays on Saturday. We’re just like, ‘Alright. Bet.’ There always comes a time or a situation.
“That was pretty cool.”
And classic Payton.
“I hate that term, ‘The hay is in the barn,’” Payton said. “It’s never in the barn.”
2. Nix’s 18-yard touchdown run that put Denver in the lead with 1:51 remaining was a beauty, and it finally — a year later— tapped back into a key part of Nix’s 2024 success.
Nix started slowly his rookie year, but quarterbacks coach Davis Webb told The Post last year that he considered a frantic, wide-open fourth-quarter chasing points in a Week 6 loss at the Los Angeles Chargers as the moment he knew his pupil could be a difference-maker.
Sunday night felt like that fourth quarter, except Nix and the Broncos actually came back and won this game against the Giants.
What’s interesting, though, is that it was Week 7 in New Orleans last season when the difference in offensive approach for Denver felt palpable.
An NFC scout told The Post after that game, “The game started and I was like, ‘What is this offense?’”
The Broncos got more speed on the field. They used Nix extensively in the designed run game. They racked up 200-plus rushing yards on a Thursday night and set the stage for a high-quality offensive run through the middle part of the season.
Fast forward to Week 7 a year later, and Payton dipped back into that game plan for a couple of ideas.
A big play to Evan Engram going into the two-minute warning set the Broncos up at the New York 18-yard line with the stoppage to consider their next move.
Payton dialed up a rare designed quarterback run.
Entering Sunday, Nix had 33 carries on the season. Of those, 26 had been scrambles, quarterback sneaks or kneel downs.
Nix can and has created good outcomes when scrambling on designed pass plays, but designed quarterback runs or plays that feature a Nix run as a potential option have been few and far between for the Broncos so far this season.
Not this time.
Payton put four eligibles on the right side of the formation — three receivers plus running back Tyler Badie.
Sutton aligned tight on the left. At the snap, he crack-blocked defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux while left tackle Garett Bolles looped outside as a lead blocker for Nix.
The quarterback took the snap out of the gun and darted to the left. Bolles got his hands on Phillips on the edge. Nobody else had a chance.
“We got man,” Payton said, “and we had kind of saved that little crack series we ran a little bit in New Orleans a year ago. So he has good enough legs, and if you watch the film, everyone on defense is on the right side of the field.
“You have your left tackle and the quarterback.”
It was one of several good pulls of the play sheet by Payton late in the game.
It could be even better if the Broncos keep going back to it more in the coming weeks.
Payton insisted after the game, “I don’t want to hear about ‘tempo,’” referring to a common refrain this week that perhaps Denver should play faster and more frequently in no-huddle.
Funny enough, though, the Broncos found success late in the game not just by playing fast — they had to in this case because they were trailing by three scores — but also by going back to some concepts and styles that worked last year as Payton tailored his offensive plan to what Nix did well as a rookie.
Last year, Nix got off to a rocky start and really started to come into his own when Denver was forced to play fast and then committed more heavily to some of the RPO game and concepts that the young quarterback prefers.
Now the same thing is happening in Year 2.
“We just started clicking,” Nix said. “Started playing fast, started clicking.”
Who cares what you call it if your quarterback likes it and it works?
3. It was a remarkably quiet week on the Russell Wilson front, and Sean Payton still managed to get a dig in at his former quarterback.
Say this for Payton: He never misses a chance to throw shade at former Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson.
The Giants, of course, benched Wilson after an 0-3 start and turned to rookie Jaxson Dart. They’d won two straight games and should really have won a third straight Sunday at Empower Field.
Given everything going on this week — the Broncos returning from London, the celebration of the 2015 Super Bowl team and Demaryius Thomas, and the surprising run of bulletin board material supplied by the standout pass-rushers from both teams — Wilson wasn’t even an afterthought. He came out for early warmups with his headphones on, went through his normal routine, and then found some Giants fans near the visiting tunnel and signed autographs a couple of hours before the game.
That was it. He stood, mostly by himself, and watched the game from the sideline.
Payton’s got history with the Giants organization, though. He spent four seasons coaching for the team in the 1990s and said after the game that he’s close with John Mara, the team’s owner.
“They found a little spark with that quarterback,” Payton said. “I was talking to John Mara not too long ago, and I said, ‘We were hoping that change would’ve happened long after our game.’”
Translation: Payton hoped Denver would face Wilson rather than the rookie.
Sunday did mark a pretty telling day for Wilson, though.
He’s now watched his three most recent games at Empower Field, over three seasons and for three different teams, from the sideline.
First came the final weeks of the 2023 season after Payton benched Wilson in favor of Jarrett Stidham. Then came a Week 2 visit from Pittsburgh last year when Wilson was dealing with a calf injury and didn’t play.
Now this year, Wilson signed a one-year deal with the Giants for $10.5 million this offseason and made it three games before coach Brian Daboll, with his job on the line, had seen enough.
It’s difficult to see where the road goes from here for the 2012 third-round draft pick. He played 10 straight years in Seattle to start his career, but now has seen his tenures in Denver, Pittsburgh and New York end far sooner than he planned. The trade deadline is coming up in a little more than two weeks. Will a team want him as an insurance policy? Or will he be left backing up Dart and then hitting free agency again in 2026?
4. Dre Greenlaw’s impact was felt early — just not often — in Denver’s win. If he stays healthy, he’s going to be fun to watch.
Once inside linebacker Dre Greenlaw was activated from injured reserve Saturday, and his debut with the Broncos came clearly into view, one source close to him had a prediction.
“I actually feel sorry for the Giants,” the source said.
Greenlaw has been champing at the bit to get on the field. Broncos coaches talked about needing to navigate how much work they gave him in camp after a spring quad injury. Then setback after setback. The final landed him on injured reserve from Weeks 3-6.
When he finally hit the field, though, he made his presence felt quickly.
Greenlaw racked up four assisted tackles in his first six snaps and finished his debut with six tackles plus a crushing hit on Dart.
Denver took a unique approach with the long-time San Francisco playmaker: Let him play early in the game until he hit a max of 20 snaps, then get him out. Greenlaw watched most of the stretch run from the sideline without his helmet.
“Just seeing the work he put in and the disappointment in his face when he almost got there and then something happened,” defensive lineman Malcolm Roach told The Post. “Just knowing how much of a dog he is — he goes hard. He gave us a good spark. We done seen him at practice, so we knew what we got. We just had to get the world to see it, and, boy, when they take him off that play limit, it’s going to be crazy.
“He’s downhill. When we’re running to that ball, I’ve got to watch out for him because he’s trying to beat me to it.”
5. Every time Marvin Mims Jr. is involved, good things seem to happen for the Denver offense
In the early going for the Broncos on Sunday, the only time they did anything positive was when they got the ball in Marvin Mims Jr.’s hands. At one point, Mims had 26 yards on two touches, and the rest of the offense combined for 17 yards on 16 plays.
Mims made big plays down the stretch, too.
He hauled in a contested catch for a 31-yard gain to convert a third-and-11 just before the two-minute warning on Denver’s go-ahead touchdown drive. Then he got 29 more on the final drive of the game to jump-start the Broncos’ blast into field goal range in the waning seconds.
In all, Mims finished with six catches (seven targets) and 85 yards plus 13 rushing yards.
The six catches ties for second-most in a game for Mims in his career. He did it earlier this season in a 28-3 win against Cincinnati, as well.
What’s more, both of Mims’ big plays Sunday came with him playing from traditional receiver positions. For much of the early part of the season, Mims has been used as a gadget player, occasionally lining up in the backfield and being a focal point of Denver’s screen game.
“We’re always looking for ways to get him involved. Get him in space,” offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi said Thursday. “There’s stuff in the plan every week. … Sometimes you get to it and they cover it. Sometimes you don’t. But moving him around can stress a defense. Obviously, we’ve had some big plays over the past couple of years with him coming out of the backfield or in motion.
“It’s been good. Probably won’t do it anymore.”
Lombardi might have been joking with that last part, but it will be interesting to see if Denver continues to use Mims in a more traditional receiver role in addition to his other work. His playing time entering Sunday (41%) is up from last year (27%), and outings like this one are a good reminder of what he can do outside the screen game.
6. Before the Broncos’ torrid offensive fourth quarter began, they’d been in a game-plus drought.
Not just struggling to move the ball or put points on the board.
Struggling, really, to function in any manner.
Denver went 14 offensive possessions from the start of the second quarter against the New York Jets in London last week through the third quarter of Sunday’s eventual win against the Giants and basically netted one point.
They got a field goal down the stretch against the Jets, but also gave up a safety in that game. Then they started Sunday with six punts, a turnover on downs and a failed drive before the end of the first half.
The tally overall in that span: 10 punts, a turnover on downs, the end-of-half failure, a safety and a field goal.
All of that turned into a big, ugly footnote when Denver finished Sunday with 33 points in five possessions — four touchdowns, two two-point conversions and a field goal.
6b. The Broncos have played seven games this season, and three of them have come down to walk-off field goal attempts.
On the third try, Sean Payton’s team ended up on the winning side.
That’s thanks to kicker Wil Lutz, who calmly put a 39-yarder through the uprights as time expired, his first true game-winner in two-plus seasons with the Broncos.
Lutz knew a game-winning attempt was coming as soon as the team crossed midfield on a 29-yard completion from Bo Nix to Marvin Mims Jr.
That would have been a 60-yard attempt had Denver not moved the ball any farther.
Lutz, though, said the distance in that moment didn’t really matter.
“In that situation, my line doesn’t matter,” he said of his range. “We’re kicking it no matter where it is. For this situation specifically, there was no line. We were going to give it a chance wherever the ball was when the clock called for a field goal.”
6c. The Broncos yet again owe a big “thank you” to the opposing coach.
There is just no reason to chase points when you’re winning and in control of a game, and yet there was Brian Daboll, following an early missed extra point by going for two. The Giants failed there, so two points.
Then Jude McAtamney missed another extra point with 37 seconds to go. Now, he’s only on the roster because of an injury to Graham Gano, but the two extra points and missed two-point conversion cost the Giants three points.
It’s not just the difference between two and three at the end of the game, either.
If McAtamney makes the early extra point or Daboll opts for one and gets it on the third touchdown, it’s a 20-point lead. That’s categorically a three-touchdown lead. At 19, the Broncos had more pathways back into the game, unlikely as they were.
7. After one of the most unpredictable games you’ll see, here’s an easy call to start Week 8: Sean Payton is not going to be particularly pleasant to be around the next few days.
He more or less said as much after the game.
Canvassing the locker room afterward, players and team executives agreed.
“To be honest, it doesn’t feel sweet,” running back J.K. Dobbins said afterward. “It’s great to get the win, but we can’t have that.”
That, naturally, is Denver’s putrid first three quarters offensively.
That is also John Franklin-Myers getting called for roughing the passer and Riley Moss getting tagged for pass interference on New York’s go-ahead drive late. Payton himself falls into that camp with what he referred to as a “silly” flag for berating the officials after Moss’ penalty.
That is 12 more penalties and 127 more yards.
That is losing Giants tight end Daniel Bellinger twice for massive gains.
That is a whole lot of stuff that didn’t hurt in the immediate aftermath, but is going to sting during Monday film reviews.
“I keep getting my hair cut, and it gets greyer,” Payton said. “There’s relief, but as a coach, there’s like — oftentimes when you lose, there are a ton of good things that took place that you can build on. Then, it’s not unusual when you win that there are a ton of things that need cleaning up.
“We’re going to enjoy today, but tomorrow is not going to be as pleasant. It can’t be or we’re just fooling ourselves.”
There’s no fooling this part: The Broncos are alone in first place in the AFC West for the first time since Week 4 of the 2016 season.
They’ve won four straight games, marking the third straight season under Payton with a streak of at least that long. They’re already favored to run it to five next week against Dallas.
“The following week, when you steal a win, is a challenging week,” Payton said. “So we’ve got to be prepared to bury this and get ready.”
The coach wasn’t smiling in the locker room until his defensive player of the year candidate chimed in with a request.
“(Nik) Bonitto told me to smile,” Payton said. “I said, ‘All right, I’ll smile.’
“I just think there’s a lot of work ahead.”
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