PREVIEW: Denver Broncos Must RUN OVER Houston Texans on Sunday

PREVIEW: Denver Broncos Must RUN OVER Houston Texans on Sunday

The Denver Broncos must run all over the Houston Texans. It’s the Broncos offensive line against that fierce Texans defense. We’ll break it all down and more here on today’s episode of Locked on Broncos. You are Locked on Broncos, your daily Denver Broncos podcast, part of the Locked On Network. Your team every day. Hey, hey, hey. Happy Friday, Broncos country. Welcome to another episode of Locked On Broncos, your daily Denver Broncos podcast, part of the Locked On Network, where you know it’s your team every day. Thank you so much to all the everydayers out there in Broncos country. Thanks for tuning in and making us your first listen however you choose to do so. I’m Cody Ror, Broncos reporter for mile high sports, joined as always by Sarah Bettinger, site expert over there, predominantly orange.com. It’s Friday. You know what that means? It’s our final game preview as the Broncos look to win an AFC conference matchup on Sunday against the Houston Texans. We’ll tell you Bo Knicks has a big opportunity in front of him here this weekend. Plus, we’ll go through and tell you why the Broncos quarterbacks without Patrick Certan, they got a tough test in the first game without the reigning defending NFL defensive player of the year against a group of wide receivers that’s getting their top guys back into the mix. Plus, we’ll tell you why the Broncos must run all over the Texans and wreak havoc on CJ Stout. You’re going to get all that on today’s episode of the show that’s brought to you by our friends over there at Mazda. And like our players, we sweat every detail because when you make every move count, pulling off the unexpected is only the beginning. Stay tuned later for highlights in this week’s moving the game forward. Mazda move and be moved. Sir, final game preview up ahead. Great crossover episode you did with John Hickman of Locked on Texans to preview this game. But now we’re going to go through our nuts and bolts here for Sunday’s matchup. First off, I think diving into our players to watch. I think that’s going to be the most important aspect here. I I like your picks for this week’s game, my friend. You care to share who you’re starting off with with your first player? It’s uh a couple of defensive guys for me, but Nick Bonito, Cody, is my top player to watch this week for the Denver Broncos against the Houston Texans. We talked about it in the crossover episode. This is expected to be a low-scoring game, right? I mean, the odds makers are saying lowest overunder of the week out of any of the games out there. If that is going to happen, I think Nick Bonito is going to be a big reason why. Because over the last two weeks, Cody, you know who hasn’t had a sack? It’s Nick Bonito. And he had eight sacks in the first what, six games of the season. Now, here we are a couple of weeks later, he’s still sitting on those eight sacks. I feel like he’s got a little uh ground to make up right now. And you know, CJ Strad, he’s got an offensive line in front of him that is, you know, they’ve been a little susceptible to pass rushers. I know we’re going to talk about that more on today’s show, but I think Nick Bonito proving that he is the premier pass rusher in today’s NFL. I think that’s going to make him my top player to watch in this week’s game. Yeah, and look, a lot of teams have been trying to double team and take him out of the equation. I mean, he’s seeing extra chips, but that’s where I think in the last handful of weeks, we’ve seen guys like Zack Allen obviously step up. We’ve seen JFM really step up here for Denver, and that’s because of the attention that guys like Jonathan Cooper and Bonita are getting on the outside edge. I love that pick of Bonito. I think we’re due to maybe see big play Nick come up here very, very soon. Hopefully, it is Sunday morning, 11:00 a.m. Mountain time kickoff. I like that. One player I’m going to go with here today, sir. I’m going to go with Bo Nicks. I think he’s got a really big opportunity ahead of him, right? Because after his four touchdown performance last week against the Dallas Cowboys, everyone’s like, “Oh, well, it was just the Dallas Cowboys.” Yeah, he did exactly what he should have done there. Now, he’s going to be facing a very tough defense there. Derek Stingley Jr., Jaylen Petri, two really premier players in the corner and the safety positions in that Houston defense and you have that tough pass rush and you got pretty good linebackers as well. This is going to be I think the toughest defense and I’ve said it all week that I think the Broncos offense and Bo Nicks has faced all year and they faced some really good defenses, really good fronts. I just think overall collectively this is going to be the stingiest defense he goes against. And if he can go on the road sir and play effective football, be consistent, not turn the football over and he could find a way to put up points and lead the Broncos to a victory here against Houston on the road in a tough AFC game. Look, Houston is much better than their record indicates and that’s because their offense has been so up and down. Their defense has been great. But if Bo Knicks can go play well against this defense, I’m curious to see how the goalpost will move from his detractors that talk about him almost every single week that put up their little acronym brocharts on Twitter. Bo Nicks has a big opportunity to shut all these people up on Sunday. I would love that so much. I really would. And I love some of those people, right? Some of the people who love advanced statistics and analytics and things like that. That’s great. I’m glad that you’re passionate about that. But look, Bo Nicks passes the eye test. He does. He just he’s just a good football player and he’s a player worth building around. So sometimes you got to be able to see the forest through the trees and the trees are statistical data and analysis that breaks down every single throw of every single week. Cody, it’s getting to the point of, you know, when people chart like training camp passes and, you know, percentage of completed throws during skelly and seven on seven and things like that. It’s like, all right, we got to at some point we got to slow down with all this stuff right here, right? I mean, we’re overanalyzing what’s happening before our eyes and missing the moment, right? You don’t want to uh forsake the future um just because you you aren’t pleased with what’s going down in the moment. So, I love that pick. I also have Dre Greenlaw in my players to watch, Cody. Of course, we’ve only gotten to see Dre Greenlaw play once this season. It was two weeks ago when the Broncos beat the New York Giants, and he was definitely on a pitch count for that game. So, I’m going to be interested to see now that he’s obviously hasn’t played a game between, but is that pitch count going to go up because he’s getting more acclimated to playing at full speed? I think he’s going to be motivated to go out there and knock some teeth in Cody, impress his old mentor, Demo Ryan. I know those guys, I’m sure, are still tight to this day. And, uh, you know, it’s it’s going to be a big-time opportunity for him with Pat Certan out. I know they played completely different positions, but Greenlaw was brought in to be the enforcer of this defense. I saw our good friend Ben at Sports Talk Denver compared him to, you know, the Akib Talib of this Denver defense, right? And kind of does bring that kind of attitude, doesn’t he? He’s got that fire about him. He’s got that, you know, I’m going to go out there and six tackles and 20 snaps. Like, we know what this guy brings to the table. How big of an impact can he make in this game? Well, we’re fixing to find out. Well, and all the time that he has missed too, that’s just pent up aggression. That’s just wanting to be out on the football field and not being able to. There’s frustration here. There’s a release that is coming here for Dre Green Line, too. And and one thing he did is he did he did take accountability saying, “I should have never been in that situation. I got to be better.” Like he he took full responsibility for his actions after the game that obviously led to him having a one-ame suspension. And then when asked about a pitch count, he said, “I can go all night.” So hopefully the Broncos getting get him rocking and rolling here in Sunday’s game against CJ Strad. There would be a very nice addition to see especially against you know running back as big as Nick Chub. I know Woody Marks for them is also on the injury report there but man they got two big back bulky guys Dario Gumba as well and you just need a guy like Dre Greenlight to kind of set the tone to say hey we’re not gonna let you run it’s not gonna be easy this upcoming week here. So I like that pick here. I’m gonna go with the defensive player next. I’m gonna go with Chris Abrams drain. Look, I think all eyes are going to be on him because look, you can’t replace Patrick Sutanise. You simply can’t. And we’re not saying that he can’t. But there’s a reason that the Broncos have believed in Chris Abrams drain. They’ve drafted and he’s developing. He stepped up last year in the rookie spotlight. He got thrown into the fire. Obviously, last week against the Dallas Cowboys against CD Lamb and George Pickkins. And you know what? He had pretty good coverage. He kept everything in front of him. I’m curious to see the Broncos approach here though. I think Abrams drain is probably going to be the guy that gets to start on the outside though. Shawn Peyton did allude to early on in the week that they could use multiple guys. Vance Joseph said we could also use multiple guys as well. So, I’m I’m curious about this, but for Abrams Drain, you know, I think that with PS2 being out, you have Rodley Moss. I wonder if the target share changed a little bit. I wonder if they’re going to go after Abrams drain more so than Moss, but that’s obviously going to play into our matchups to watch it. We’re going to talk about here in a little bit. I’m just excited to see the secondyear cornerback Adam Missou go out there and hopefully make some plays and maybe we’ll see a combination of guys stepping in. But I I think regardless whoever steps in at quarterback, I think it’s Abrams drain. They have some pressure added to them this week against this Houston Texans offense. They definitely do. And I would really like to add maybe Riley Moss as a honorable mention there. Just kind of vamping off what you were saying. It’s going to be a completely different way of going about attacking this Denver Broncos defense than we’ve gotten used to. Right. because Riley’s been the most heavily targeted corner in the NFL this season. And there has been some feast or famine with that, right? Obviously, he’s allowed the lowest completion percentage of any corner in the NFL, but he’s also getting called for a bunch of penalties. And I loved Pat Certan and Christian Gonzalez and Terry and Arnold. They’re talking about all those penalties and they go listen to Pat’s podcast if you haven’t already or at least check out the highlights of that because he had some strong words about Riley Moss being called for all these penalties. So did John Gruden. and John G. Lots of people that you wouldn’t expect, Cody. They’re coming to the defense of Riley Moss here. And hopefully the NFL takes note of that. I’m still waiting at any point in time here. I want Riley Moss to have one of those games, one of those ones that you’re just like, dang, this dude is, you know, like you mentioned the pentup aggression with Dre Green Law. I feel like Riley is due for a game like that where either he picks off multiple passes or he creates multiple turnovers somehow like he’s due for a ball don’t lie game. So that’s another honorable mention maybe that I’m looking for here. I like it. Broncos country, make sure you share with us today who you have your eye on in Sunday’s game against the Houston Texans. But coming up next, we’re going to tell you why that Broncos quarterback group, they got the work cut out for them as the Texans are getting back a couple of their top receivers. We’ll break that down and more here on today’s episode of Locked On Broncos. This episode of Locked On Broncos is brought to you by Mazda’s moving the game forward. 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Are you nervous about any of these matchups? This is another opportunity for the Broncos to go ahead and make a statement against a quality AFC team that’s caught a little bit of fire here over the last month. Broncos country, we’re going to break down all those matchups, but want to first say thank you so much to every single one of you that makes Lockdown Broncos your first listen of the day every single day. We appreciate you all so so much. And Cody, let’s talk about these matchups because, man, we broke it down a little bit uh in the Crossover Thursday episode, but of course, this is a game where I don’t think you can really highlight enough of the matchups within the matchups. There’s so many good quality player versus player, unit versus unit, whatever you want to slice it. This is a great game overall that we’re going to be watching on the All 22 and really just just diving in and enjoying that aspect of it. What what do you think is maybe the top though individual position matchup here going up against the Texans? Well, I think I might have to group them all together here in this situation too. I teased it earlier. I think the Broncos cornerback group, Riley Moss, Chris Abrams drain, Jaquin McMillan, you name it. Jade A Baron, whoever is out there. I think against this Houston Texans wide receiver group that is getting Nico Collins back and Christian Kirk. They’re getting both those guy back. Obviously, they have Jaden Higgins. They got Jaylen Null. They got some really good rookies. They got some really good players over there in Houston. So, they’re getting obviously their top two receivers back. I know Tank Dell is not there for them this season after the scary injury he suffered last year. He was healthy, then this would be an even scarier match up to go into without PS2 in the mix, but I think when you talk about Christian Kirk and his ability, Nico Collins, who nearly had 200 yards the last time these two teams faced off, he almost had that in the first half, by the way. And I can’t remember who the corner was that year opposite of Pat. I think it was Deari Matthysse if I’m not mistaken. I’m not sure what exactly what it was. But this is just going to be a tough one because CJ Strad, I think they know that the Broncos are going to send pressure after him and they’re going to try to get the ball out of his hands quickly. I think that’s where you’re going to see them try to connect with guys like Kirk, see them connect with guys like Nico Collins. This is going to be, I think, a tough matchup here and I think it’s going to be one of the more important ones that maybe define the outcome ultimately of Sunday’s game. It definitely will. It’s I don’t want to necessarily say it’s best on best in this game because I think you could say that about a lot of different matchups, but the Broncos depth at corner is the best in the NFL and it’s being tested now. You’re going up against a team that’s getting really quality players back. Veteran players, guys who can make, you know, those tough third down conversions where if you’re not in the right position, they’re going to make you pay. Nico Collins, he’ll make you pay, right? We’ve seen that firsthand as uh members of Broncos country just a couple of seasons ago. So, when you talk about this Texans receiver room, how much more critical is it going to be? Another matchup that we want to talk about is those Broncos pass rushers obviously going up against the the Houston Texans offensive line. That pass rush getting home quickly, forcing quick decisions from CJ Stout. It’s going to be huge, but also the pass rush on the other side. Cody, when you talk about Bo Knicks kind of trying to build off what he did against the Dallas Cowboys, man, it’s going to be critical for Garrett Bulls, Mike McGllinchi, and anybody who’s helping Chip, anybody who’s in pass protection at running back, and we know the Broncos will throw other guys back there. That’s going to be huge in this game. Yeah, and Garrett’s been playing so well. I think Mike McGlini has been playing well this year as well. Garrett, I think, is in truly in consideration for that protector of the year award. At least we’re talking nine games through the season. He’s played fantastic. He’s going to face a tough test this week too against the Neil Hunter. Look, I Denver’s faced some really good pass rushers. You talk about Brian Burns, Kavon Tibido, Abdul Carter. I mean, you name it. Good pass rushers off the edge. They’ve done a really good job of neutralizing. Trey Hendrickson, Garrett Bulls dominated that matchup on Monday Night Football just several weeks ago, a handful of weeks ago, not several. But I think that you can see certain matchups where maybe they move Will Anderson around a little bit to maybe isolate him. But I like the Broncos book ends at tackle at this point. Mike McGllinchi has shown to hold his own as well. I think the key this week is obviously those guys are going to attack up field. How does it work on the interior? Can the Broncos avoid letting interior pass rush penetration get there to affect the pocket of Bone Knicks? I think those outside guys do a tremendous job even though that they’re facing probably maybe one of the best duos right now. Uh that’s in terms of being on a stingy suffocating defense. I I think that this is going to be obviously one of the key matchups that could define this game. protection, protection, protection on a hostile environment where we know it can get loud in Houston. We also know Broncos country travels well as well. Well, let’s maybe talk about the idea that over the last two weeks, the Broncos top edge duo I they haven’t been necessarily neutralized. I wouldn’t say that. I think they’ve kind of, you know, just compared to the first six weeks of the season, the last two games, those Broncos edge players, they’ve not been wiped off the board, but it’s been a little bit more difficult. So, do the Broncos even take some pages out of the books of the teams that they’ve faced the last couple of weeks and say, “Hey, here was the plan going up against our edge duo. Here’s kind of what we have to do.” I’m sure they’d know their own way to do it, right? But you get what I’m saying. You look back at how teams have kind of, you know, approached going up against you and going up against your elite edge duo and say, “Hey, they had success doing this.” We know that Shawn Payeyton is willing to pull plays from games that he, you know, the the touchdown run from Bo Knicks, somebody called out that that was from a 49ers Saints playoff game that Alex Smith ran that play for the 49ers like 15 years ago or something crazy. So, that’s that’s the kind of thing that I’m talking about is you see how teams are playing you. Do you take some pages out of that book as well when you’re talking about going up against a top tier edge duo like this? Yeah, I think it’s a great question to ask here. And look, I I think another one too that’s going to be important to highlight. I I think maybe this might be the heavyweight matchup, Courtland Sutton against Derek Stingley Jr. These two have had some really good battles over the last couple of times that they’ve played. I think the last time they played, Courtland had a touchdown, but also Stingley had an interception. So, they, you know, they’re able to trade Barbs back and forth. This is going to be a tough one because I imagine they’re going to put Stingley, they’re going to have him follow Sutton everywhere. So, this does open things up like this is the matchup to watch. Courtland, I think, is going to get a couple of shots downfield or even in the intermediate. But I I also want to bridge this as part of like, okay, another big game potentially for Troy Franklin or Pat Bryant. It’s unlikely that Marvin Mims is probably going to play in this game. Two days in a row of non-participation at practice. We don’t know what his status is yet here at Fridays, but maybe unlikely that he’s going to clear concussion protocol before Sunday’s game. Hopefully, he can return on Thursday Night Football. So, guess what, Pat Bryant, it’s your turn to step up. Troy Franklin, it’s your turn to go out there and continue to make big plays here. I I think that’s going to be important to watch here for this wide receiver room. You want to see where it’s at, especially with the NFL trade deadline coming up. You got the Rumblings out there. No Marvin Mims more than likely. How does this unit perform, especially if Courtland Sutton’s going to see the attention of Jaylen Petri and also Derek Stingley Jr. bracket covering him a crucial passing down situations? I think that’s something to watch for. It is. And those guys all made plays in the game against the Dallas Cowboys and that was great to see, right? And Courtland could have made even a couple of more, at least one more for sure, right? So, we know that they left a little bit on the table even given what we saw against Dallas. You want to build on that. And that was a game in which Marvin didn’t do too much offensively. So, not not to say you won’t be missing him because you will, especially in the punt return department, which I want to talk a little bit more about today, Cody. But that return game takes on a new shape. The receiver room is maybe a little bit more clarified. Evan Ingram going to have to come through. I think against a defense like this, you want to create those short situations on third down. The receivers are going to have to help move the chains and keep the ball in possession of Bo Nicks. Broncos country, make sure you let us know which match ups you’re looking forward to the most here in Sunday’s game against the Houston Texans. Coming up next, we’re going to get to our keys victory. Why the Broncos, they must run against this Houston Texans defense and must wreak havoc on CJ Strad. You get that and more here on today’s episode of Locked On Broncos. Today’s episode of Locked On Broncos is brought to you by Rouiet. Let’s be real, making excuses doesn’t solve anything. 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If the Denver Broncos are going to win on Sunday, they must do these things against the Houston Texans to improve to seven and two on a short week ahead of Thursday Night Football. Broncos country, thank you once again for tuning in, making us your first listen, however you choose to do so. We appreciate you so much, every single one of you out there in Broncos country. Sarah, let’s get into our keys to victory here. We’ll go rapid fire. Let’s go back and forth here and exchange barbs on this one. When we talk about our keys, I think this is always cliche, but I think it’s so important this week. I teased it before obviously we got to this segment. The Broncos have to run against this Houston Texans defense. I know that they’re top five against the run, top five against the pass, one of the best defenses in all of football right now. But the Broncos, something has to give, right? Either the trend is going to continue for the Texans defense. Well, the Broncos are going to buck that trend as one of the top rushing offenses right now in the NFL and they’re going to have a big contribution in Sunday’s game. They got to run wild here against Houston. How nice is it to be able to lean on JK Dobbins who’s got 200 plus yard games this season? I mean, he’s been outstanding for the Broncos. Cody, if he can have a big game against Houston, I think we start getting really loud about the idea that he needs to be extended in season. Get a give him a couple more years added to the contract. He’s been such a great fit for the organization. I I love the idea that this game could maybe propel him to something here in the middle of the year. I I love your pick of the run game being effective. How about this? when the Texans do get into scoring range, limit them to three and don’t allow touchdowns. Don’t give up touchdowns in this game. I think if the Broncos, I know that’s easier said than done, but as much as we’ve been talking about the Houston defense for this whole week, and I’m included in that, man, the Broncos have the freaking one of the best defenses in the NFL as well, Vance Joseph, even without Pat Certan is going to have an opportunity here to keep that identity the same. That’s been a common theme that we’ve talked about this whole week is what’s the identity going to be without Pat? Are they going to do what they did last year and shift to a lot more zone as opposed to man coverage? Is he still going to blitz a lot? What’s going to be like to have the wrinkle of Dre Green Law back? The bottom line is don’t give up touchdowns whenever they do get close enough to score. That’s what the Broncos have been great at all year is, you know, those red zone trips, man, they just stall. That’s what they’ve got to do to beat this Houston Texans team on the road. Well, they’re the number one red zone defense in the NFL right now. They’ve done a great job of holding opposing offenses out. And and look, even last week, too, on that very opening defensive drive that they had against the Cowboys, which is the second ranked offense scoring offense in the NFL, I think people forget that when Patan went down, the Broncos still held them to a field goal even though the ball was at, I think, what the one or two yardd line at that point. So, very impressive for Denver to be able to buckle down in those situations. Obviously, the the Texans offense has some talented players, but I I think that trend will continue here for Denver’s defense. Being stingy when it comes to the red zone, not letting guys in the end zone there, I think is going to be the most important thing. I like your key to victory. My second one here is going to be first down efficiency on both sides of the ball. We’re talking offense. You need to have positive flow early on here so you don’t find yourself behind the sticks on second down, which ultimately puts you in a tough position on third down from the offensive side of things. Defensively, make sure that you get stops early on. If they’re going to run it, stuff it for a loss. Stuff it for no gain at that point. Allow one yard and then change that up a little bit as well. Especially if they try to pass it, can you find a way to back them up? Can you get after CJ Stout on first down and maybe sack him and force a second and long? If that is the opportunity that the Broncos defense has and they can capitalize on that, it’s going to play into their hands defensively that I think where they are going to allow themselves to continue to have success not only as the number one ranked third down defense right now in the National Football League, but then it allows you to kind of pin your ears back a little bit even without Patan. Play in front of the sticks, keep everything in front of you, and then you can rally and get stops and force punts, get off the field. All starts with early down efficiency here for the Broncos. Yeah, 100%. 100% does like you said on both sides of the ball. And how about that third phase of the game, right? I kind of teased it in the previous segment, but who’s going to return punts in place of Marvin Mims if he can’t play? We saw Riley Moss out there. He caught the last punt of the game against the Dallas Cowboys. I don’t necessarily know that they’re going to want Riley out there returning punts. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. I don’t I don’t know who it’s going to be. like do you have any insight that you can actually share on that Cody or do you have any theories on who it could be? Because that’s what one area right now that I’ve just kind of like put at the back of my mind and we’re waiting for the game to find out. It’s a little scary to think about. Look, I obviously all year long on the depth chart the backup punt returner has always been Riley Moss. I don’t know if they’re going to put Tyler Bedet back there to do it. I think that’s certainly in the realm of possibility. I I think I don’t know without Marvin if Marvin is not going to play which I I think that’s the trend here. I think he’s trending towards not playing. Is it a situation where you just tell Riley, Riley, just fear catch it every time? Just fear catch it just because you want to be safe. Not only that, you don’t want your other starting quarterback who’s very important to your defense maybe taking a shot or getting twisted up on a return and then all of a sudden now you’re down without your top two quarterbacks in this game. You know, it it’s either Riley’s going to be the returner or maybe Tyler Bedet at this standpoint. I I can’t think if there if there’s anybody else offensively. I mean, I think Troy could do it, but why would you want to put Troy Franklin back there to do it? So, I don’t know. I’m very curious for uh for what Darren Rizzy’s got up his sleeve. And look, obviously, the whole thing with Marvin should have never happened. I think that’s been a talking point all week long. How that miscommunication obviously led to uh some some other issues. And uh I don’t know if the NFL is going to do anything about that, but they’re probably going to be looking into it. So, we’ll see how uh things play out. But not having Marvin is big, sir. Special teams has to be big. And man, Devin Key has been such a dog on special teams this year when you talk about their punt coverage, their kick coverage, who’s making plays. Number 26. Put some respect on Devin Keyy’s name. Folks, my last key to victory, Sarah, is really kind of goes into the matchup that we talked about earlier. Broncos quarterbacks, this is the opportunity where you know you’re going to get tested, especially without Patan where you knew going into the game they’re probably not going to throw to number two’s way. Now they might be able to throw to both sides of the field here. Now is your opportunity as a defense to go out there and get some interceptions. Get at least two interceptions here off of CJ Stout. That’s what I want to see here from this Broncos defense on Sunday. Absolutely. That’s that’s something that I was thinking about as well is make CJ Strad make bad throws or take advantage of his bad throws. Don’t let him have that opportunity to oh, you know, he made a mistake on this one, but we couldn’t quite come away with it. Take advantage of every mistake the Texans make in this game. That’s how you win games like this on the road that might be tight. They might be low scoring. You got to rush the passer. You got to create takeaways. And you got to take care of the football. And like you mentioned earlier, Cody, you got to run the football. Hey, here’s an idea. Just throw Dandre Tilman out there on the punt returns, right? We saw the the brothers got some serious skills in the open field uh in terms of the play that he made against the Cowboys. But all kidding aside, like that is an area of this game that you just cannot lose ground. You can’t lose the field position battle against the number one defense in the league. You got to create those extra opportunities for your offense. If you’re the Broncos defense, create short fields and make sure that you take advantage. Like on the opposite side, the Broncos, you want to prevent them from getting touchdowns. When you’re the Broncos, you get in the red zone. Cash those opportunities in. I hope Shawn Peyton’s got those plays ready in the old bag of tricks for when they get into the red zone because he’s created some pretty wideopen plays throughout the course of the season. Well, and on top of that, the Texans defense is good at everything else. They’re one of the worst red zone defenses in the NFL. 31st ranked to be exact here. And you know, Sean Payton’s keying and eyeing everything on film. They break certain things out. And I think we’ve learned some interesting insights that throughout the week of practice, they they put these plays in and then they show it in the team meeting the night before and apparently they play the players college fight song. So Troy Franklin, R.J. Harvey, they they play the fight song. They’re like, I think this is going to be a scoring play. Sean goes, I think this is going to be a scoring play. R.J.’s touchdown was a scoring play. Obviously, the one that they showed the night before at the team meeting, he said, “We think this one’s going to be a scoring play.” Troy Franklin’s second touchdown of the night. They went and showed that the night before, and they said, “Tomorrow, we think this is going to be a scoring play.” And it was. So, I’m curious to see what comes to fruition here in Sunday’s game. The Broncos looking to improve to 7-2 and obviously improve to 4-2 in the AFC with a win over the Houston Texans. Tiebreakers essential. You got Kansas City and the Chargers creeping right behind them. Can the Broncos take advantage? That’s the hope here. But with that said, Broncos country, that’ll wrap up today’s episode of the show. Sarah and I, we will see you after the game on Sunday for the lockdown Broncos postgame report. Enjoy your weekend. We’ll see you then.

The Denver Broncos must run over the Houston Texans on Sunday. Bo Nix has a great opportunity to further prove himself against one of the NFL’s best defense. Dre Greenlaw, Nik Bonitto, and Kris Abrams-Draine are other players to watch on Sunday.

Plus, the matchups of Courtland Sutton vs. Derek Stingley Jr., Garett Bolles against Danielle Hunter, and Riley Moss and Abrams-Draine against Nico Collins and Christian Kirk will be ones that define Sunday’s outcome.

Cody Roark is a credentialed beat reporter for Mile High Sports and covers the Broncos daily in person. Sayre Bedinger is the site expert for Predominantly Orange. Both bring Broncos Country the most in-depth and objective coverage of the Denver Broncos.

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