{"id":694015,"date":"2026-01-21T15:24:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T15:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/694015\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T15:24:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T15:24:18","slug":"broncos-face-major-challenge-in-their-afc-championship-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/694015\/","title":{"rendered":"Broncos face major challenge in their AFC Championship game"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have to start by acknowledging the elephant in the room.\u00a0 It\u2019s a cloud that hangs over this game that seriously dampens any level of excitement I would have normally had for this matchup.\u00a0 Bo Nix played his butt off last weekend and literally laid it all on the line to get his team to the conference finals.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for all of us, that included breaking his ankle on the third-to-last play of the game.\u00a0 He actually took at least one snap with that broken ankle when he downed the ball in position for Will Litz to kick the game-winning field goal, ending the season for Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

No more Nix:\"\"Jan 4, 2026; Denver, Colorado, USA; Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix (10) looks on during the second half against the Los Angeles Chargers at Empower Field at Mile High. Mandatory Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

But now he\u2019s lost for the rest of these playoffs, and instead of getting a head-to-head matchup of the #3 and #12 picks from last year\u2019s draft, we get\u2026.Jared Stidham.\u00a0 The talking heads will try to spin this and tell us that Stidham is a solid player, that he\u2019s the guy that Josh McDaniels took with him when he left New England for Oakland some years ago.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll invoke names like Jeff Hostetler and imply that anything can happen on any given Sunday.\u00a0 While that may be true, the Broncos just aren\u2019t running the ball well enough to cover for the loss of Nix.\u00a0 For some reason, Sean Payton has no faith in their running game.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Can they get the ground game going?\"\"Jan 4, 2026; Denver, Colorado, USA; Denver Broncos running back RJ Harvey (12) runs with the ball during the game against the Los Angeles Chargers during the first half at Empower Field at Mile High. Mandatory Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

There is just zero reason that any team should have thrown the ball in excess of 30 times while only attempting 10 rushing plays from their backs against a Buffalo defense that ranked near the bottom of the entire league against the run in 2025.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

So now, I\u2019m supposed to buy that the Broncos will be able to run the ball against a Patriot defense that was ranked 6th in the league overall against the run and just held Houston to 2.2 yards per carry last weekend?\u00a0 It seems a bit hopeless to me.<\/p>\n

Check out all of our NFL articles: https:\/\/www.thebiglead.com\/category\/nfl\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We have to start by acknowledging the elephant in the room.\u00a0 It\u2019s a cloud that hangs over this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2062],"tags":[114,925,232,231,258,2426,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-694015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-broncos","8":"tag-afc-championship","9":"tag-bo-nix","10":"tag-broncos","11":"tag-denver","12":"tag-denver-broncos","13":"tag-denverbroncos","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115933785474024923","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694015","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=694015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}