Sean Payton essentially chalked the offensive stats up to garbage time.
They counted in the fourth quarter of a Week 6 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, sure. But did they mean anything?
The Broncos coach scoffed at the notion that night at Empower Field.
“Let’s be honest: It picked up when we started going up-tempo. And when you’re behind, then you’re getting an entirely different coverage look,” Payton said minutes after his team fell to 3-3.
The Broncos had been shut out into the fourth quarter before turning a 23-0 deficit into a 23-16 final count. Bo Nix entered the fourth quarter 4-of-14 passing for 27 yards, a sack and a bad first-quarter interception — reminiscent of the minus-7 he had in the first half two weeks earlier at the New York Jets — and had no answers for the Chargers’ defense.
If Payton discounted the frantic final frame, though, his 29-year-old quarterbacks coach politely disagreed.
In fact, Davis Webb now points to it as the moment he knew Nix had the goods to lead the Broncos on a run.
Since the day Nix was drafted, Webb has been his NFL sherpa. They’re together every day on the field and in the meeting room. When they’re not in one of those two spots, they’re texting ideas and questions, plans and plays, corrections and encouragement, regardless of the hour.
Webb’s been confident in Nix from the start and programmed his whole coaching arsenal specifically for the rookie.
In this moment, though, the young coach was frustrated.
“We were down and we were not moving it,” Webb recalled this week. “I think I said something to him and it probably wasn’t very nice.”
Nix didn’t pout or shout back. He made his point on the field instead.
“He made probably five plays in one quarter alone that I only know of two other people who could have done that,” said Webb, who backed up Patrick Mahomes at Texas Tech and then Eli Manning and Josh Allen in the NFL. “I knew it, right then and there. …
“And then he got on a little streak.”
Indeed he did, and so did his team.
Starting with that fourth quarter, Nix played Denver’s final 11-plus games to a 105.8 quarterback rating. He completed 69.6% of his passes and threw 26 touchdowns against seven interceptions.
The Broncos won seven of their final 11 games, didn’t lose at home after that day and made the playoffs for the first time since the 2015 season.
Nix, of course, is a big reason why. He is not the only one, though. In fact, after he caught fire against L.A., the rookie became just the latest in a long line of successful moves the Broncos made between the end of a drama-filled 2023 season and a promise-filled 2024 campaign.
A centerpiece, to be sure, but one of many critical players acquired by Payton and general manager George Paton that fit neatly into the Broncos’ puzzle and helped turn a rebuild into a playoff contender in a few short months.
Cap hazard
Of course, none of that could have been predicted when the Broncos officially released quarterback Russell Wilson in March.
At that time, it was difficult to overstate the number of questions that existed on the roster.
They had no answer at quarterback.
They had a defense that ended up ranked near the bottom across the board outside of a mid-2023 turnover barrage.
They had cut loose veterans like Randy Gregory and Frank Clark and turned to a young group that at times looked up to the task but also struggled.
They didn’t have much cap room to work with and they knew that getting rid of Wilson meant swallowing the largest dead salary cap charge for a single player in league history.
They allocated $53 million of Wilson’s $85 million in dead cap — guaranteed money that teams have not yet put on their salary cap books — on the 2024 ledger.
Add in charges for Gregory, Clark and a host of others, and Denver faced the prospect of trying to contend with more than a third of its cap space chewed up by players no longer on the roster.
“Sometimes those types of challenges, you roll up your sleeves,” Payton said this week. “I think your players certainly do have a little bit of a chip when they see those initial prognostications or whatever. Then eventually, when you’re in this long enough, you tune that stuff out because half those people don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.
“Who’s done this before with over $80 million dead? No one’s done that before. Let’s be the first one.”
The Broncos aren’t completely in uncharted territory. While they do have the largest raw number of dead cap charges — right around $90 million, according to OvertheCap and Spotrac — of any playoff team in history, the percentage of cap room dedicated to dead money is slightly behind the Los Angeles Rams last year.
They were well aware of that success and the way three other teams managed to make the playoffs with big dead cap totals in 2023, as well.
“We’re hoping to follow the same model,” Paton told The Post during training camp, noting that all four — the Rams, Green Bay, Philadelphia and Tampa Bay — still managed to get quality quarterback play.
That trend continued this year.
Six of the 10 teams carrying the most dead cap qualified for the playoffs, while only three teams in the bottom 10 made it.
“My takeaway has been that dead money shows that a franchise takes risks, which is good in the NFL,” OvertheCap founder Jason Fitzgerald wrote on social media recently. “And (it) sometimes forces a team into getting younger, which is also good.”
If you’re carrying a lot of dead cap for a year or two, Fitzgerald surmised, you might just be doing necessary roster overhaul. If you’re consistently near the top of the list for the 3-5-year range, then you’re probably just making too many mistakes.
In the Broncos’ case, the decision to admit their mistake and move on from Wilson was bold — the team paid him $39 million this year and Pittsburgh paid him only $1.21 million — and ultimately successful.
Puzzle pieces
Jettisoning Wilson and other veterans also boxed the Broncos in during free agency, however. They had a little room to work with but had to push money down the road to create enough to make even modest moves.
One year after shelling out $128 million guaranteed on the first day of free agency, the Broncos last offseason were forced to take a different approach. They finished No. 29 in free-agency spending, according to OvertheCap data.
“It was the idea that we’d all like to go out and shop for ‘X’ number of groceries, but we’re going to have to go down a different aisle,” Payton said.
Turns out, the Broncos still managed to find plenty of ingredients, particularly on defense.
In 2023, Vance Joseph’s group couldn’t stop the run and was inconsistent rushing the passer. A bad combination.
Then in the spring, the Broncos released the heartbeat of that unit in longtime safety Justin Simmons.
Paton and Payton went to work retooling via free agency.
They signed safety Brandon Jones, defensive lineman Malcolm Roach and inside linebacker Cody Barton to modest deals. During the NFL draft, they traded a future sixth-round pick for John Franklin-Myers and quickly signed him to a reworked, two-year deal worth $15 million.
Those four players could not have fit Vance Joseph’s defensive group much better.
Jones led the team in tackles, logged three interceptions and finished the regular season with the third-highest Pro Football Focus grade among safeties in the NFL.
Roach and Franklin-Myers transformed Denver’s defensive line from one of the league’s worst into one of its best.
“I tell people all the time: JFM is the best 3-technique I’ve ever played with,” outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper told The Post. “Malcolm Roach brings a different type of energy and juice that’s rarely like any teammate I’ve ever had. Having those guys on our team and what they’ve been able to accomplish and help us to this year, it’s been irreplaceable.”
Barton took over calling the defense when Alex Singleton tore his ACL in Week 3 and has played 91% of Denver’s snaps.
The quartet of additions counts $13.63 million on the Broncos’ salary cap this year. The team saved $14.5 million when it released Simmons.
“They did an awesome job,” safety P.J. Locke said of the Denver front office. “I don’t know what else to say about it. They did a great job going out and getting the guys that we exactly needed.”
The results have been obvious.
Denver’s ranked near the top of the league in most defensive categories. The Broncos are solid against the run, they’re among the most difficult teams in the NFL to throw the ball against, they led the league in sacks by a wide margin, and they’re stingy in the red zone.
Built to last
A year ago this week, Payton wouldn’t even entertain the idea that the Broncos had set a foundation to build on.
He knew the quarterback change was coming. He knew several veteran players didn’t fit what he wanted. He knew it felt like his team had a long way to go just to find the starting line.
A partial list of what he didn’t know:
• Whether he’d find a quarterback in the draft or free agency that he loved
• Who would start at cornerback opposite Pat Surtain II
• Where a consistent pass rush might come from
• Who would play with Zach Allen and D.J. Jones on the defensive line
• Who would play center in the middle of an expensive offensive line
When the Broncos arrive in Buffalo for their first playoff game in nine years, they will do so as a group that’s answered all of those questions and more and done it, improbably, in one lightning bolt of an offseason.
First the series of shrewd signings. Then the Nix pick. The JFM trade. Second-year surges from cornerback Riley Moss and receiver Marvin Mims Jr. A litany of guys playing the best football of their careers, from cornerstones like Surtain and right guard Quinn Meinerz to a rising star in Nik Bonitto, to veteran receiver Courtland Sutton. And a pair of guys who played their way into in-season extensions in Cooper and left tackle Garett Bolles.
They have their entire offensive line under contract for 2025. Their defensive core, except for Barton and defensive tackle D.J. Jones, is intact, too.
They have an easing — although still real — cap burden related to Wilson in 2025 and then are in the clear in 2026. They have needs and more tough decisions ahead.
They have Nix.
They think they have a puncher’s chance against the Bills. Whether the season ends Sunday or further on down a surprise postseason run, they know they’ve got a future that looks, after years of darkness, quite bright.
“I love it,” Cooper said Thursday, fresh out of any more ways to describe the past 10 months. “I love this team for real, man.”
2024 NFL dead money leaders
| Team | Record | Dead cap (mil) |
|---|---|---|
| Denver | 10-7 | $89.1 |
| N.Y. Giants | 3-14 | $82.5 |
| Buffalo | 13-4 | $75.1 |
| Carolina | 5-12 | $73.2 |
| Minnesota | 14-3 | $69.8 |
| Tennessee | 3-14 | $67.5 |
| Green Bay | 11-6 | $64.6 |
| Philadelphia | 14-3 | $63.5 |
| Tampa Bay | 10-7 | $62.5 |
| N.Y. Jets | 5-12 | $62.3 |
2024 playoff teams in bold | Source: Spotrac
Bang for the buck
| Offseason addition | Position | Years | Dollars | Notable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brandon Jones | S | 3 | $20M | Team-high 115 tackles, 3 INTs |
| John Franklin-Myers | DL | 2 | $15M | Career-high 7 sacks, 12.6% pressure rate |
| Josh Reynolds | WR | 2 | $9M | 12 rec., 183 yards, TD in five games, hurt Week 5, waived Week 14 |
| Malcolm Roach | DL | 2 | $7M | Career highs in sacks (2.5), tackles (45), TFLs (5) |
| Cody Barton | ILB | 1 | $2.5M | Played 91.1% snaps, 106 tackles, 2 INTs |
| Matt Peart | OT | 1 | $1.29M | Played 17 games as swing tackle, jumbo TE |
Source: Spotrac
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