The Broncos are trying to MAKE HISTORY...

At 4 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, the NFL trade deadline closed and the Denver Broncos walked away with exactly one new player, a linebacker. Dayan Henley from the Chargers for a 2027 fourth round pick and a 2028 fifth round pick. George Payton did check in on the players this offense needed. Jonathan Taylor and Trey McBride, according to Broncos Wire, neither one is coming to Denver. If this feels familiar, it should. Last year, the Broncos stood pat at the deadline as well, rode the defense all the way to the AFC Championship game, and lost it to New England, obviously, with Jared Stidham. In February, Payton said, quote, I don't think what was available would have made much of a difference for us. Now, he's made the same bet twice on an offense that puts up 284 total yards, a game 31st out of 32 teams. So can a 7-2 team with that offense win a Super Bowl? The last 11 champions answer it, and one of them is a Broncos team that scored almost exactly what this one scores. Henley's deal came through less than an hour before the deadline, and he brings a team high 51 tackles in eight games for the Chargers this season. He led the Chargers in tackles in each of the last two seasons as well, and across 56 career games, he has 317 tackles, 5 sacks, and 4 interceptions. He turns 27 next week and is in the last year of his rookie deal, so Denver gets him cheap now and decides what to do on him in the spring. The reason Denver wanted him is coverage. The pass coverage has been struggling a little bit, and covering the pass is Henley's calling card. For a fourth and a fifth, that's a good price for a starter. That tells you what Denver thinks its problem is. And it's a defensive move for a team that already has a top-10 defense, allowing 20.7 points a game, 10th in the NFL. The offense is where people want the call made, though, and they wanted it made weeks ago. On October 20th, with Denver 26th in rushing yards, columnists were already writing that if the Colts were willing to move Jonathan Taylor, the Broncos needed to be calling. Broncos wire says Payton checked in on Taylor, on McBride, and on safeties, and Henley is still the only player who came back. It's the same thinking Peyton laid out in February when he said, I don't think our receiving group held us back from this game. He made the same call again, and nine games into this season, nobody in this year's group has more than 337 receiving yards. Last week, Sean Peyton got asked if the Broncos would be buyers and said, We're not looking to sell. They weren't sellers. They just didn't buy anything for the side of the ball that needed it. Which means the offense that got them to 7-2 is the offense they're taking into January. So how bad is it really? The Broncos are 7-2. They've won five straight and they sit first in the AFC West. But they score 22 points a game, which ranks 21st in the league. The two losses show what happens on the days it doesn't show up. 10 points in Kansas City in Week 1, then 14 points in San Francisco. Even the wins are tight, because 6 of the 7 came by 8 points or fewer. Most of the trouble comes before they get close. On drives that die before they get anywhere. On 3rd down, the Broncos convert 32% of the time, 31st out of the 32 teams. Only one offense in the NFL is worse on 3rd down. The run game doesn't bail them out either. Denver runs for 91 yards a game, 27th in the league. It's 3.7 yards a carry, 28th in the league, so when they do run, it doesn't really go anywhere. The passing game doesn't have one guy carrying it either. Jalen Waddle leads the Broncos with 337 receiving yards this season, and Cortland Sutton is next with 266. Evan Ingram is on the books for $14.1 million this season and only has 169 receiving yards. As a team, they net 186 passing yards a game, 24th in the league. Nix has 1,730 passing yards and 11 touchdown passes, and he's completing 61% of his throws. What keeps them winning, anyway, is that they almost never give the ball away. Bo Nix has thrown four interceptions in nine games. That has the Broncos at plus five in turnover margin, fifth best in the NFL. When they do get close, they finish. 63% of their red zone trips end in touchdowns, 12th in the league. This is an offense that just doesn't lose games for you. It just also can't put anybody away. And the Bo Nix, who shows up late in the games, looks nothing like the one you see early in them. The slow starts are real enough that Peyton gets asked about them constantly. And last week he answered, I'll let you know the week we don't want to start fast, but it's not this week. Through the first six games, Nix only threw 175 yards a game. He bottomed out at 123 yards against the Chargers and 107 against Seattle. And Denver needed the defense to win both of those. In the last three games against Arizona, Kansas City, and Carolina, he's at 227 per game. That's five touchdown passes against one interception, and the Broncos won all three of them. It's also November, which has been his month since he got to Denver. Eight and two in his career with 16 touchdown passes and six interceptions. Late in games is where he's been good as anyone in football. The Broncos trail by one to eight points in the fourth quarter. Nix has a 118.9 passer rating, first among 169 quarterbacks per the AP's Josh Dubow. He even has a name for it. I'd much rather be Big Clutch than the other way around. The locker room buys it. Pat Surtain II said, there's no other quarterback I'd go to bat for than Bo Nix. Going into the bye week, Nix said, at 7-2, we're really confident. That is how you go 7-2 with a 21st-ranked scoring offense, winning one-score games in the fourth quarter. The problem is, January doesn't give you three quarters to warm up. If you want every Broncos story like this, This is the day it breaks. Hit subscribe, guys. We're at 2,860 subscribers, and every one of you moves that number. We are aiming for 3,000 as soon as possible. So what does a Super Bowl offense actually look like? Of the last 11 Super Bowl winners, nine finished the regular season in the top 10 in points scored. Seattle won it in February with 483 points in the regular season, which was third in the league. And then they beat New England 29-13 in the Super Bowl. That's 82 more points than Denver scored in the same regular season. Only two champions in that span in the past 11 years have won it from outside the top 10. The 2023 Chiefs were 15th in points scored with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback, and then the 2015 Denver Broncos were 19th. That 2015 team went 12-4 and scored 22.2 points a game, and this team scores 22 points a game. On offense, this is basically the last Broncos team to win it all. The gap is on the other side of the ball. The 2015 defense allowed 296 points all season, fourth fewest in the NFL. This year's defense is allowing 20.7 points a game, which is 10th. It's good, but it's not the same. Last year's team shows what sits in between. The 2025 Broncos went 14-3 and scored 401 points, which is 14th in the league. That got them as far as the AFC Championship game and no further. And the team that beat them, New England, is on this year's schedule as well. The 2015 path is real, but it also asked this defense to be a lot better than 10th. And it asked for help from inside the building. The biggest piece of help Denver can add is already on the roster. So that's the thing. RJ Harvey went on injured reserve on October 31st and has to miss four games. So the earliest he's back is in Miami on December 6th. Even after missing time, Harvey is third on the team with 217 receiving yards out of the backfield. Until he's back in the backfield, it's J.K. Dobbins who leads the team with 324 yards. Peyton has talked about load managing him, so Dobbins has 98 carries in 9 games, and Peyton still calls him a huge part of what we're doing. Behind him, Jonah Coleman ran for 57 yards and scored in Carolina nearly 100 yards from scrimmage once you add his catches. Pat Bryant, 4th on the team with 189 receiving yards, was questionable with an ankle on the Week 9 report, so the bye matters for him as well. The other help is the pass rush, and that part of the defense is already near the top of the league. Denver has 26 sacks this season, sixth in the NFL. Zach Allen and Nick Bonito have four and a half sacks each, and Malcolm Roach is right behind them with four. Put Henley in coverage behind that front, and you can see exactly what George Payton is betting on. He's betting on that defense to climb from 10th into the top 5, and that offense only has to be what it was from 2015. The schedule will tell us fast whether that bet is any good. After the bye, it's the Raiders on November 22nd, then a trip to Pittsburgh on November 27th. On Christmas Day, Buffalo comes to Denver with the league's top offense at 400 total yards per game. Then on January 3rd, the Broncos go to New England, the team that ended their season in January. So what's the verdict here? What do you guys think about whether this team is similar to 2015, better, worse, all of the above? We want to hear your guys' thoughts. What's going to be the biggest test for this team? What do you predict their record going to be the rest of the way? Will Bo Nix and this Broncos team become the winningest? First three seasons for a starting quarterback in NFL history. I do believe he has to go seven and two down this stretch, which is very possible considering the record that the games that are remaining. But let me know what you guys think. And until next video, I'll see you then.