Take away quarterback Bo Nix’s 12 runs – most of them scrambles – and Broncos running backs RJ Harvey and Jaleel McLaughlin only rushed 10 times for 41 yards.

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Sean Payton went into the playoff game against the Buffalo Bills with the intent of his Broncos’ running the ball.

The Bills were No. 28 in defending the run this season; No. 1 against the pass.

The Broncos’ attack didn’t go as planned. Take away quarterback Bo Nix’s 12 runs – most of them scrambles – and Broncos running backs RJ Harvey and Jaleel McLaughlin only rushed 10 times for 41 yards. Nix threw the ball a whopping 46 times.

“No, we just won the game,’’ Payton said sarcastically when asked about his lack of running game in a 33-30 overtime win in a Divisional Round playoff game. “There was a lot of talk how—games unfold differently. Look, the first running play of the game for Buffalo went for 24 yards. I’ll write it on the script for you today again, so that it’s a reminder. The key is understanding how to win that game and then understanding how to adjust.”

With Nix hurt and the Broncos promoting backup quarterback Jarrett Stidham to start Sunday in the AFC Championship Game against the New England Patriots and their formidable defense, won’t running the ball be important to the plan this week? Don’t know because Payton cut off the question before it could be asked.

Run the ball or not, Payton in his thought-veering way, said he believes Stidham can do the job Sunday.

“There’s a calmness about him when … Now, I’m not making a comparison, and yet I’ll read 50 stories that I compared this player to Mark Brunell,’’ Payton said about the lefty quarterback who was his backup quarterback in New Orleans in 2008-09. “I just can’t help it. I’m not making the comparison, but Brunell had this calmness about him when he was our [No.] 2. He’d step in the huddle …

“That’s why I loved back in the day when the backup quarterbacks were the holders. They were the last ones to talk to the kickers. You could fake a field goal, and then at some point, the special teams coaches had a coup, and they said, ‘Well, the punters get more time to work with them.’

“But Brunell just had that moxie, and so if it wasn’t your starter and he stepped in, there was this smooth operation. I would say Stidham has that ability to step right in, calm things down, here’s what we’re doing, break the huddle. Yesterday’s practice was a perfect indication of it. The key was making sure, and I said this offensively, let’s not assume. … The cadence is the cadence, but one beat off, and we could have a couple false starts, so focus on making sure… Typically, most teams in the league, as the starter gets ingrained in his cadence, it’s the others that begin to emulate it identically. We’ve seen that passed down through the years. Just think about (Brett) Farve and the gun, and the foot forward, and how he stood, and then all of a sudden you started seeing the exact from (Aaron) Rodgers, and then you see the exact from their quarterback now (Jordan Love).

“It’s interesting when you see certain traits like that, that may be not—like we’re not talking about throwing traits—but from a cadence standpoint, all of that was smooth yesterday.”