{"id":645606,"date":"2026-01-01T13:29:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T13:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/645606\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T13:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T13:29:13","slug":"sean-payton-reveals-key-area-broncos-must-improve-in-nfl-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/645606\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Payton reveals key area Broncos must improve in NFL playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Going into the final week of the regular season, the <a href=\"https:\/\/broncoswire.usatoday.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Denver Broncos;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Denver Broncos<\/a> (13-3) are tied with the best record in the NFL, and they currently hold the AFC&#8217;s No. 1 playoff seed.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/denver-broncos\/332\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Broncos;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Broncos<\/a> are a well-balanced team with the NFL&#8217;s fourth-best scoring defense and the AFC&#8217;s seventh-best scoring offense. If there&#8217;s one area where coach Sean Payton&#8217;s squad is taking, it&#8217;s takeaways.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Denver ranks 25th in the league with a -5 turnover differential. If the Broncos are going to make a deep run in the NFL playoffs, that number has to improve.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The one area that has to improve is the turnover margin, and that can happen,&#8221; Payton said. &#8220;We did a collective of the last 25 years of Super Bowl winners. It\u2019s something like 114 in the plus. There\u2019s been one Super Bowl winner in the last 25 years [in the negative] &#8212; I\u2019m just talking about when the playoffs begin, if that makes sense. When the playoffs begin, the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/los-angeles-rams\/343\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Rams;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Rams<\/a> recently were the only minus-two turnover team. The rest added up to some crazy number, and so that\u2019s something we have to improve on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Denver has 17 giveaways this season (11 interceptions and six lost fumbles), which ranks 13th-best. A more concerning total is just 12 takeaways (nine interceptions and three fumbles), which ranks fifth-worst in the NFL. In addition to protecting the football, the Broncos need to force more takeaways. If they don&#8217;t, the odds will be against them as they seek a fourth Super Bowl title.<\/p>\n<p>Social: Follow\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/broncoswire.usatoday.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Broncos Wire;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Broncos Wire<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BroncosWire\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Facebook;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/thebroncoswire\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Twitter\/X;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Twitter\/X<\/a>!\u00a0Did you know:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/broncoswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/broncos\/2019\/08\/03\/denver-broncos-famous-fans-celebrities-include-paul-george-amy-adams\/79446413007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:These 25 celebrities are Broncos fans;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">These 25 celebrities are Broncos fans<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Broncos Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/broncoswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/broncos\/2026\/01\/01\/nfl-sean-payton-broncos-must-improve-playoffs\/87973159007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:NFL: Sean Payton reveals key area Broncos must improve in playoffs;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">NFL: Sean Payton reveals key area Broncos must improve in playoffs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Going into the final week of the regular season, the Denver Broncos (13-3) are tied with the best&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[258,7,6,84,1813,30403],"class_list":{"0":"post-645606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-playoffs","8":"tag-denver-broncos","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-nfl-playoffs","12":"tag-sean-payton","13":"tag-super-bowl-winners"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115820086693079452","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645606","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=645606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}