Good morning, Broncos Country; welcome to our playoff week 1!

Between Vegas and pundits, it appears the Broncos’ week off plus playing at Mile High is not convincing enough to think Denver is the “overdog.”

And I love that. I prefer the Broncos to be overlooked underdogs, so the team can stay focused on fighting to prove everyone wrong, rather than buying into any noise that they should easily beat a team.

For one thing, since when has a Denver Broncos team in any era pounded another team into submission? Almost never. For another thing, I wouldn’t necessarily disagree that this team actually does need to prove itself in the playoffs before the betting odds move to their favor.

“We’re going to have to play better…the tape from last week wasn’t really good, offensively. It wasn’t great at Kansas City either. It was good enough to win that game. We have to be sharper as we get to these next few games here.”

— sean Payton

The best part of this divisional matchup is that it is a rematch of last year’s wildcard game and will be billed a revenge game for Denver.

Bring it on. Nothing will get Mile High more fired up than a revenge game. And a fired-up Mile High is even better than the revenge factor.

But I’m not gonna lie, either. I prefer a revenge game to the Bills than the Chargers or Texans. Josh Allen will do Josh Allen things, no doubt, but the team around him this season is not as strong as it’s been, nor as complete as the other two (granted, Justin Herbert is probably still dizzy from all the sacks and would have been a lot easier to beat than he was in Week 3 but my point remains).

But the Broncos need to step up quite a bit from their offensive performance the last few games of the season. The lack of red zone production will absolutely not work against the Bills. Even a banged up Bills team. Allen is too good and will put the team on his back to win if Denver gives even the slightest inch to allow it.

“We’re going to have to play better,” Sean Payton said last week after being asked if he had dialed back the aggressiveness the past two games. “I’d love to say that we pulled a bunch back, but the tape from last week wasn’t really good, offensively. It wasn’t great at Kansas City either. It was good enough to win that game. We have to be sharper as we get to these next few games here.”

The game plan for beating the Bills seems pretty simple actually — pressure Allen, run the ball, and create turnovers.

I don’t want to see Vance Joseph do anything other than bring the heat. Allen is beat up. And he’s prone to turnovers under pressure. At the same time, Allen is the Bills’ X-factor and the only way to stop him is to actually stop him…before he can throw an accurate ball. He is also feeling some pressure from Buffalo fans that it’s time to cash in on his MVP-caliber seasons with a team championship. Allen is 7-6 in postseason play, and his experience in the playoffs will serve him well. Running back James Cook led the NFL in rushing yards this season, but the receivers are not real threat capable of consistently winning one-on-one matchups.

While running hasn’t been the Broncos’ strong suit much of the season, it has shown improvement and should be able gain some big yards on the NFL’s 28th place ranking of the Bills’ run defense that allows an average of 136 yards per game and gives up a high rate of explosive runs and yards per carry (over 5 YPC). And with a top-ranked passing defense, Bo Nix just needs to find Courtland Sutton on every third down and life will be good.

This is really the key to most football games. It’s as much about preventing the other team from scoring as it is about giving the ball back to your own offense (but that’s obviously nice too). As the Broncos hopefully rediscover some red zone mojo, the Broncos’ defense needs to remain laser-focused on taking that ball away and not letting Allen have too many minutes on the field. Sacking Allen is always nice, but he’ll escape and will definitely find ways to get the better of a defense, no matter how elite it is. The Broncos offense will have to do its part, but the defense getting a few takeaways will allow Nix time to get into a rhythm and could even add points on the board.

OK, Broncos Country, what did I miss? How do you think the Broncos should try to beat the Bills?