Good morning, Broncos Country!<\/p>\n
Denver\u2019s win in Arizona on Sunday wasn\u2019t just another check in the W column.<\/p>\n
It was affirmation to fans (and analysts) that this team is on the right track and the signal caller is the right guy at the helm.<\/p>\n
Of course, it shouldn\u2019t have had to be that kind of message to Broncos Country because Denver was still 4-2 and second in the AFC West heading into the game.<\/p>\n
But the bumpy road to those four wins had fans questioning.<\/p>\n
And on Sunday Nix was the one bringing the answers.
The criticism of Nix the past few weeks has focused a lot on his decisiveness in the pocket and overall aggressiveness to make a play, many questioning whether offseason ankle surgery was still an issue (and one idiotic announcer suggesting he just wasn\u2019t competitive and was disrespecting the position).<\/p>\n
But when No. 10 ripped off a 62-yard touchdown run just minutes before halftime, clocking 19.9 mph in the process, he allayed a lot of concerns about both.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce you start running, you sort of turn into a running back at that point and you\u2019re worried about an explosive play and maximizing the plays,\u201d Nix said, noting that the man-to-man coverage gave him a lot of room to run. \u201cAt that point, we had a great opportunity to run a long way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nix admitted that even though he\u2019s never questioned his athleticism, he knows it often comes as a surprise to opponents that he can run so fast.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really nice,\u201d he said of getting to show off his running capability this week. \u201cI guess until people really see [my speed], they never really believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zach Allen certainly believes. The defensive lineman goes against Nix every day in practice, so he knows what the QB is capable of.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see in practice how athletic he is. Bo is Bo,\u201d Allen said. \u201cWe\u2019re glad he\u2019s our guy; when he\u2019s making plays, he gets the whole team juiced up. So, (I\u2019m) really excited for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nix also made a believer out of Broncos Country once again \u2013 and not just because of the long touchdown run. He managed the offense for four quarters, sustaining drives and completing passes all over the field to a host of receivers.<\/p>\n
The offense finally looked legit instead of just fortunate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt that we played a good game offensively,\u201d Nix said. \u201cStill several things that we would like to get better at, but overall, we had a big win over a tough team on the road so it was really good for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Head coach Sean Payton always says the two best friends of a quarterback are a great defense and a solid run game.<\/p>\n
Until this week, the Broncos had really only had one of the two.<\/p>\n
But with a little spark from the return of rookie running back Jonah Coleman, plus continued grinding from RJ Harvey and JK Dobbins, the Broncos finally put up respectable numbers in the run game \u2013 159 yards total.<\/p>\n
Even if you took away Nix\u2019s 62-yard long run, the total rushing yards would still have been close to 100 on the day, which was a marked improvement on the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe played well,\u201d Payton said of the rookie running back. \u201cThe touches he had were explosive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Payton noted that getting more playing time has to be earned, and Coleman is certainly doing that. Averaging 6 yards per carry on his nine touches got the attention of his head coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe looked really good,\u201d Payton said. \u201cDefinitely have to get him more touches.\u201d
While the defense didn\u2019t have to win the game for Denver this week, the fact that it can consistently wreak havoc for opposing offenses is reassuring.<\/p>\n
And this week it was the red zone stops rather than the turnovers being showcased.<\/p>\n
The Broncos allowed the Cardinals just one score from the red zone out of five trips inside the 20.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s huge,\u201d said Allen, who was originally drafted to the Cardinals but picked up by the Broncos three years ago. \u201cWe invest a lot into the red zone (defense), so when we see success there, it means a lot. We\u2019re excited about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so is the head coach, especially given the number of starters on the defense who were out nursing some injuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty impressive. You\u2019re just thankful for the depth (and) those guys stepping up,\u201d Payton noted. \u201cA lot of guys played well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good morning, Broncos Country! Denver\u2019s win in Arizona on Sunday wasn\u2019t just another check in the W column.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1037650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[232,231,258,1151,2426,7,6],"class_list":["post-1038448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denver-broncos","tag-broncos","tag-denver","tag-denver-broncos","tag-denver-broncos-news","tag-denverbroncos","tag-football","tag-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117512578246311730","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1038448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1037650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1038448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1038448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1038448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}