Courtland Sutton stood at his locker Monday night and lavished praise on his former teammate.
Cleveland receiver Jerry Jeudy had just gone nuclear on the Broncos to the tune of 235 yards and a touchdown, though Sutton got the last laugh in a 41-32 Denver win.
“He shined really bright when the lights were the brightest,” Sutton said of Jeudy. “He did his part to help his team be successful, and it just came a little bit short. Seeing him have the success that he had today was heartwarming.”
Jeudy, as it happens could easily have been justified in saying something similar about Sutton.
The Broncos’ top receiver didn’t put up eye-popping numbers and didn’t find the end zone, but his fingerprints were all over Denver’s offensive outing.
Sutton finished with six catches and 102 yards. Four of the grabs went for third-down conversions, all on scoring drives that ended in a pair of touchdowns and a fourth-quarter, go-ahead field goal.
Basically, he did what he’s been doing for several weeks now: played like a true No. 1 receiver for rookie quarterback Bo Nix.
“He practices every day extremely hard,” Nix said in the lead-up to the game against Cleveland. “He’s out here practicing like it is a playoff game or it’s the Super Bowl. He gets every rep — he hates missing a rep. He hates having to sub in and out, but that’s just him.
“When we get into a game, I know he’s going to be in. I know he’s going to take the rep. I know we’ve gotten that rep during practice, so I have all the confidence in the world throwing it to him.”
It’s shown over the past six weeks.
Sutton in that span has 42 catches (57 targets) for 569 yards and three touchdowns. Over a 17-game season, that’s a 1,611-yard pace. On the season, he’s up to 846 yards, which is good for No. 10 in the NFL and is already the best mark for Sutton in a season since his breakout, pre-injury 1,116-yard 2019 season.
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Perhaps even more impressive in this six-game run is Sutton’s work on third downs. He’s caught 21 of 23 targets for 297 yards and 18 conversions, including a 32-yard touchdown at Kansas City. That’s as close to automatic as you’ll find in the NFL.
Good players get on hot streaks — Jeudy’s remarkably similar six-game run at the end of 2022 (37 catches, 523 yards, three TDs) in Denver looked like his ascent into the pass-catching stratosphere, but it didn’t carry over to 2023.
This current run for Sutton, though, feels at the very least like an unlocking.
Head coach Sean Payton’s figured out more and more how to feature him. Sutton’s built a good rapport with Nix, who looks like Denver’s long-term answer at quarterback. And he’s playing, really for the first time in his career, for the same offensive braintrust for a second straight season. Sutton played for offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur in 2020 and 2021 but missed nearly all of 2020 with a knee injury.
All of that adds up to make this the best rhythm of Sutton’s career and a flow that seems, at least generally speaking, sustainable.
It also adds up to dollars now and in the future for the former second-round pick out of SMU.
Sutton’s already cashed his end of $1 million in incentives added to his contract this summer. The Broncos only need to finish ahead of last year in either scoring or yards per passing attempt for him to get the money, and they’re tracking toward doing both — and he’ll hit another $500,000 if he gets to 1,065 receiving yards. He’s on track for 1,106. If he plays the final four at the same clip as his past six, he’d finish at 1,223.
It’s not a secret that the Broncos went into the season feeling like one of the items on their roster-building project was to find a No. 1 receiver. If this run doesn’t convince the Broncos that the 29-year-old can be it, at least for the next couple of seasons, then nothing likely will.
Sutton is one of a bunch of Broncos who have turned in good seasons at important points in their careers and probably made themselves a lot of money in the process.
Jonathon Cooper’s already earned a big extension. Nik Bonitto’s price tag goes up by the day. Impending free agents like left tackle Garett Bolles and defensive tackle D.J. Jones are still quality players who should have healthy markets this spring if they’re not re-signed by then.
Sutton’s under contract through 2025, though with a cap hit of $20.2 million.
When the Broncos restructured his deal and added up to $1.7 million in incentives instead of extending him before the season, they left themselves with options about whether to offer a true contract extension or part ways with the veteran receiver after this season.
That looked like good business then and it still does now, but Sutton’s play the past six games looks like that of a receiver worthy of being Nix’s go-to target well into the future.
Sutton can seal that deal by keeping up this run the next four games and into the postseason.
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