Denver Post Broncos writer Parker Gabriel posts his Broncos Mailbag weekly during the season and periodically during the offseason. Click here to submit a question.
Hi Parker, I know the focus is going to be on the big win Sunday, as it should be. However, my mind is going to what the Broncos are going to do with Garett Bolles. The offensive line is playing well, and he’s certainly been a part of it. Do you think they’ll re-sign him, let one of the youngsters get a chance, draft a replacement and/or a combination?
Thanks.
— Brandon Brown, Rogers, Minn.
Hey Brandon, that’s a great question. Venerable Post columnist Troy Renck talked to Bolles about this very subject last week. Bolles, not surprisingly, expressed a desire to stay in Denver beyond this year and finish his career here.
We also, though, know stories in the NFL don’t often end that way.
Bolles’ metrics this year are really good outside the fact that he’s been penalized often. The Broncos offensive line as a whole ranks highly, too, in most metrics.
Interestingly, Broncos head coach Sean Payton was asked about those metrics Friday and he gave a good share of the credit to rookie quarterback Bo Nix.
“Show me good pass protection metrics and I’m going to show you a quarterback that doesn’t take sacks,” Payton said then. “It’s a credit to the O-line, but there are some quarterbacks that are tough to protect for. I’ve just gone through it in my career. … I think those metrics are offensive line and quarterback-driven metrics.”
Payton, of course, still values offensive linemen. It’s also fair to say that there have been several points over the past year where it would have made sense from a cap perspective to get an extension with Bolles done if the team was interested in doing one.
Instead, he’s carrying a $20 million cap number through the season. The Broncos restructured Courtland Sutton’s contract right before the season to fit Pat Surtain II’s extension in. They traded Baron Browning and in the process created a bit of space to get Jonathon Cooper’s extension in.
None of that makes a new contract this winter impossible — general manager George Paton this spring was complimentary of Bolles and said he still moves like he’s 25 years old — but it does seem as though Denver at least wanted to be out from the contract at the end of this season so it could evaluate its options fully.
Drafting one sounds good, but boxing yourself into having to select one position early in the draft is bad business. A future shuffle including Mike McGlinchey, Alex Palczewski or others can’t be entirely ruled out, either.
Even with Bolles’ contract expiring after the 2024 season, three of Denver’s top eight current cap charges for 2025 are linemen. So whether it’s Bolles moving on or some other move, some kind of shuffling seems to be in the cards this offseason.
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Re-upping with Bolles on a relatively short extension makes sense to me. Whether it’s a path the Broncos will seriously consider remains to be seen.
Can the Broncos run the table and win the final six games of the season? If not, who’s the stumbling block?
— Ed Helinski, Auburn, N.Y.
Hey Parker, we’re sitting here at 6-5 (should be 7-4) and in sole possession of the final wild-card spot. What do we need to do these final six games to get a playoff berth? Is going 3-3 going to be enough to get there? We should beat the Raiders, Browns and Bengals, but I don’t know about the rest.
— Mark, Arvada
Ed and Mark, each regular Mailbaggers, had similarly themed questions about the remainder of the season so let’s tackle them together. Running the table is unlikely for anybody with seven weeks to go and the same goes for the Broncos. But they don’t need to to make the postseason. A current odds check from the New York Times’ model puts Denver at 65% to make the playoffs currently.
The bottom line is everything keeps coming up in the Broncos’ favor. Cincinnati easily could have won its past two games and put itself in the mix, but instead, two close losses have them at 4-7. The Bengals may well need to run the table to make it from here. Everybody below Cincinnati is done. The Jets are super out at 3-8 and fired GM Joe Douglas on Tuesday, New England’s interesting long-term with Drake Maye but done this year at 3-8 and the rest are a batch of two-win teams.
That leaves Indianapolis (5-6) and Miami (4-6) one game behind the Broncos in the loss column. It goes without saying, then, that Denver’s home game against Indianapolis on Dec. 15 is a big one. It’ll count double. Same goes for the Cincinnati game, assuming they reel off some wins between now and then.
It seems like every year we look at the playoff picture and say, “This might be the year 9-8 gets you in,” but this really does seem like that year. Most of the time it takes 10 wins to feel safe. The easiest way for Denver to get in at 9-8 (which means a 3-3 finish) would be for two of those wins to come against the Colts and Bengals.
Obviously the picture changes week by week, but if the Broncos take care of business the next two games before their bye week — remember, the team’s never actually won at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas — it sets up a big one in mid-December against Indy.
It used to be that a coach would often call for the field goal try on third down in the situation the Broncos were at the end of the Chiefs game, in case of a bad snap or hold. I was surprised Payton didn’t. Did anyone ask that question post-game, or was the option not really applicable?
— Fred Waiss, Prairie du Chien, Wis.
Hey Fred, interesting question and one that hasn’t been asked, I think probably for a few reasons.
First: Operations in the NFL now are really good. I don’t know what the data says, but I think special teams coaches would tell you that kick-ruining snaps and holds are less common than they used to be. Plus, there are rules about when the offense can even retain possession. All of it just adds up to a low percentage play.
Plus, if you’re leaving enough time on the clock to know you can re-try a kick, that means you’re leaving at least a small amount of time where the other team gets the ball back. And we’ve seen that Patrick Mahomes and company don’t need much time to make something wild happen.
What’s going on with our running back situation? I feel like I never know who’s going to be RB1 week-to-week. Is it just whoever has the hot hand?
— Mike, Denver
Hey Mike, pretty much. We saw Audric Estime get 14 carries and Javonte Williams one against Kansas City and then Williams get nine and Estime six (mostly late) against Atlanta.
The snap counts in those games tell a similar story: Estime 26, Williams 17 vs. KC and Williams 32, Estime 14 against the Falcons.
When Williams has burst and is feeling good, you can see why the Broncos still want him heavily involved. He was impressive in generating 87 yards and a touchdown on 13 touches against Atlanta. But other weeks just haven’t looked the same. Estime’s got young legs and is a powerful runner. It can’t hurt to keep both as fresh as possible as the season goes along. But it’s also hard to imagine Estime going back to the one or two random carries per game down the stretch. Cold weather feels like a good time to feed him the ball.
Will we get to see Drew Sanders play this year? He was so highly talked up coming out of college, but I haven’t seen much of him.
— Adam G., Denver
Hey Adam, we think so. We’ll know for sure in the next couple of weeks. Sanders has been back practicing the past two weeks so Denver must decide on him being activated by Nov. 27.
Sanders bumped up from being a limited participant his first week back to full participation last week.
One thing we don’t know for sure is how big a role defensive coordinator Vance Joseph has in mind for Sanders if/when he returns. Since the team traded Browning at the deadline, Dondrea Tillman has provided steady snaps in the outside linebacker rotation.
There’s also the roster consideration: Denver’s got Sanders, S Delarrin Turner-Yell (Wednesday) and WR Josh Reynolds (two weeks) all nearing deadlines for returning to the active roster.
Remember: If an injured reserve or PUP player starts practicing and isn’t activated to the 53-man roster after 21 days, he reverts to the reserve list and is out for the season.
So the Broncos are in a good position where they don’t have to rush Sanders back into action, but they’re also reaching the point before long where they’ll have to make a decision.
This might make me sound like a conspiracy theorist but in any way do you think Sean Payton might be “subtly, quietly” tanking this season because he knows our roster isn’t talented enough to compete yet and needs another year of a top 10 draft choice and solid draft to improve roster enough to compete?! It’s just peculiar to me to throw Bo Nix out there so early and watch him struggle mightily but yet not make a change. And quietly ask the whole left side of the line to not block for a game-winning field goal that would hurt draft position? His job is secure and he knows that so why not try it? I may just be crazy but let me know what you think.
— Jared, Arvada
Jared, you sound like a conspiracy theorist. But that’s fine. We’ll go through why.
First point: The Kansas City loss was brutal. The Broncos should have been more concerned about pressure off the left side in recent weeks, but that hardly means it was an intentional lapse.
The second point: If this is a tank job, it’s a really bad one. The Broncos are 6-5 and will likely be favored in their next three games. They’re arguably more likely to win 10 games than land a top 10 pick, barring a massive injury run or a complete meltdown. If the draft were today, the Broncos would be picking No. 19.
The third reason: The way Bo Nix played Sunday against Atlanta — and really the way he’s played overall the past few weeks — is why they threw him right into the fire Week 1. There’s only so much you can learn from the sideline and the Broncos bet that he could handle the early struggle, learn from it and improve. He’s done that. Now, there’s a long way to go and probably some rough patches still ahead, but this is what Payton and company were hoping for by playing him early.
Part of going with that plan is, if it takes an entire season for Nix and your young players to click and you’re bad, then you’re in good draft position to add a premium player and perhaps that helps jumpstart the process in 2025. That’s why it felt like, for as much as players and coaches only talk about trying to win, that the initial goal for the Broncos this season was to get a good, solid read on whether Nix looked like the franchise’s long-term answer at quarterback.
So far, so good on that front.
But the Broncos aren’t looking for just that outcome at this point. It’s time to get greedy. Now you’re thinking that you can make the postseason and expose a group that’s ahead of schedule to what playoff football looks like. That experience would be invaluable going forward, in addition to obviously ending the franchise’s long drought.
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