Bo Nix didn’t need much time to see what kind of response the Denver Broncos were capable of after a rough opener.
A week after a 31-10 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs left Denver chasing the game most of the night, the Broncos flipped the script with a 20-13 comeback win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. Nix, who had thrown for 131 yards with a touchdown and an interception in Week 1, came back with a 288-yard passing performance and helped deliver the tying touchdown in the fourth quarter.
The change wasn’t just in the box score. It was in the way Denver handled the night after getting pushed off course early. Nix credited offensive coordinator Davis Webb for keeping the Broncos locked into the plan instead of scrambling when the first half didn’t go smoothly.
“He stuck to his game plan,” Nix said. “And he continued to even though at the beginning we didn’t have a whole lot of success, and we didn’t move the ball like we wanted to and go down and score a whole bunch of touchdowns in the first quarter.”
That patience paid off as the game wore on. Nix said Webb found better rhythm in the second half and put the offense in stronger spots, with Denver leaning on the run game more effectively on base downs.
“He just stuck to the game plan and by the second half, he was calling the plays and doing a really good job of getting us in good spots and I thought today we did a good job of running the football on base downs and that was an emphasis that we wanted to do. We found some really good run plays that we liked throughout the game.”
Nix also pointed to the broader mindset in the building, echoing the tone head coach Sean Payton wanted after the Week 1 loss. For Nix, the Broncos’ response said something about the group’s makeup.
“We you know we don’t want front runners,” Nix said. “We don’t want guys that you know only do right or you know look good or you know have great positive attitudes when we’re winning because this is the NFL and you’re not going to win every Sunday.”
He said the Broncos didn’t let outside noise seep into the locker room, even with the pressure of coming off a lopsided defeat.
“We could have gone on the road last week, could have won, could have won this game, but we still may not have found the grit that that we found this week, battling adversity and battling a bunch of negativity outside of the locker room, but we never let it creep in. We never flinched, and we never really flustered, and we didn’t panic, and we just kept the plow moving, and I thought defense played phenomenal today.
They did a great job. They kept us in the game, and when we needed it, we found times to go get touchdowns.”
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Freeze also acknowledged mistakes on both sides of the ball, which made the loss sting even more because Auburn had chances to keep pace in a game that stayed within reach. Still, he pushed back on any notion that the defeat would split the group, saying there was no division in the locker room. For a team trying to get its footing in league play, the bigger question now is how quickly those early issues can be cleaned up before they follow Auburn deeper into the SEC schedule. [Read more 🡒]