A rookie quarterback on a team that has recently shed the veteran quarterback they had traded for two years earlier to revive a struggling franchise with a coach that had achieved success on his previous stop but not here.
Not in Denver.
Not in the Mile High City.
This didn’t look like the makeup for a successful season.
The Broncos upset the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50 to complete the 2015 season. They won that game with Hall of Fame Quarterback Peyton Manning running their offense. In some ways, it really wasn’t Manning responsible for that success but more credited to a rock-solid defense.
That win was Manning’s last professional game. He was the second Denver quarterback to call it quits after winning a Super Bowl, John Elway had also gone out on top after the 1998 season.
Since that Super Bowl win and Manning’s retirement the Denver Broncos had been on a quarterback search that looked like a kid thinking he was in an Easter Egg hunt in September. Draft choices were spent on top college talent that didn’t pan out on the pro circuit, and three years ago they acquired Russell Wilson, who had twice guided the Seattle Seahawks to Super Bowl games, winning one and losing another, to lead their offense. Wilson brought Hall of Fame credentials to the Mile High City but proved a bust in Denver.
In his first year with the Broncos he got his head coach fired, after his second season leading the Broncos offense the team kept their new coach and shipped Wilson to Pittsburgh. Again, the Broncos used a first round draft choice in an attempt to fill their quarterback need. While Bo Nix was the twelfth overall selection, he was the sixth quarterback chosen in the 2024 draft.
The Chicago Bears opened the draft selecting Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels went second to the Washington Commanders and the third pick in the draft was Drake Maye, who went to the New England Patriots. With the eighth pick in the draft the Atlanta Falcons selected Michael Penix Jr. and two picks later the Minnesota Vikings took Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy. Nix went to Denver after the New York Jets had selected defensive lineman Olumuylwa Fashanu.
For a point of reference, there were also six quarterbacks taken in the first round in the 1983 draft and the last one chosen proved to be one of the best, Dan Marino. Could the Broncos catch the same kind of lightning in a bottle with Nix?
The work Sean Payton has put in with the Broncos is paying off in his second season in Denver. They are playing football much in the same image of his successful run as head coach with the New Orleans Saints. Only three teams in the American Football Conference are allowing fewer points than the Broncos this season, namely the Los Angeles Chargers, Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers.
To compliment their defense, Nix has been solid if not spectacular at quarterback. He is running an offense that makes few mistakes and relies both on his passing skills and a solid ground game. It has elevated the Broncos team this year that came into the season with Super Bowl odds in triple digits to a position at the midway point of the season that has them in prime running for a postseason berth.
This week, the Broncos return to their Mile High stadium after suffering a pair of losses on the road to a pair of the best teams in football, the Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs. This week they host the Atlanta Falcons.
One pundit on the radio said while reviewing the Sunday NFL scores, “You just never know what you are going to get with the Atlanta Falcons.” He was referring to their loss last week in New Orleans that ended the Saints seven game losing streak. The Falcons came into that game with a perch atop the NFC South Division race of two games over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who they had already beaten twice this season in head-to-head meetings.
In other words, the birds from Atlanta were sitting pretty.
For those that think you never know what you are going to get from Atlanta, a team good enough to beat the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field and take a second season win over the Buccaneers while leading them in the standings, I suggest the opposite. You know exactly what you are going to get from the Falcons. When challenged, they rise to the occasion, but in a bad spot with confidence on their side, they melt like a cake in the rain.
This week, off a loss, the Falcons will be motivated over the home team in Denver … a Broncos squad favored on the point spread and getting the public backing while riding a two-game losing streak.
This, I suggest, is another spot we can expect the Falcons to give us exactly what we expect.
Qoxhi Picks: Atlanta Falcons (+2) over Denver Broncos