The Denver Broncos enter their first playoff game since Super Bowl 50 as eight-point underdogs to the Buffalo Bills. The Bills are the AFC's No. 2 seed, while the Broncos are No. 7.
Buffalo won 13 games with an MVP-caliber contribution from seventh-year quarterback Josh Allen. The Broncos won 10 with a rookie first-rounder in Bo Nix, who turned in a historic body of work.
There are actually quite a few parallels between the Broncos and Bills, even if many of them are separated in time. But there's no doubt; the young Broncos are the underdog.
And yet, Broncos head coach is confident. He's preached that confidence throughout the week of preparation. Considering that this team hasn't sniffed the playoffs since 2015, where does Payton's confidence come from?
“I would only say past experience. History," Payton said on Friday. "There are several things that you know. Even in last year’s regular season—take any of our games we’ve played this year—the momentum pendulum is going to swing back and forth. I think the exposure and the experience of these past 17 weeks.”
It might not exactly be an advantage, as Sean McDermott's staff is very postseason-experienced, but let's not forget that Payton and a good chunk of his coaching staff have a lot of playoff skins hanging on the wall. Payton, Joe Vitt, Pete Carmichael, and Zach Strief all won a Super Bowl with the New Orleans Saints back in 2009, and were perennial playoff contenders throughout the majority of their collective tenure.
That's part of what Payton means by the "history." But he's also speaking to this Nix-led team's history and the 17-game war of attrition the Broncos collectively waged.
There were triumphs and tragedies, but along the way, the Broncos coalesced around Nix and became something that few around the NFL could have anticipated before the season started: a playoff team. After all, the oddsmakers set Denver's over/under win total at 5.5 games, which Payton scoffed at upon hearing it.
This isn't the same Broncos team that started the season 0-2. And yet, it is. The Broncos have grown, they've matured, and they've hardened into a 10-win Wildcard team that earned the privilege of traveling to Upstate New York to take on the AFC's No. 2 seed.
"I know these guys. We have each other’s back," Nix said earlier this week. "No matter what—offense, defense, special teams—somebody’s going to make a play. Somebody’s going to put us in a situation to go out there and win it. I believe that it’s time that we can show and prove, and somebody can go out there and take the game over, and go out there and win it. I think we’ve been building up for this moment. All the obstacles, and the highs and lows we’ve been through this year have set us up right where we are."
Even if some of this confidence is a facade, Payton's been around long enough to know that a.) sometimes you've got to fake it 'til you make it and b.) if you've got a dream, you've got to dream until the dream comes true, as the American song poet Steven Tyler has crooned for a half-century.
Nix shares in his head coach's confidence and optimism. And while the Broncos came up short in few road games against upper-echelon competition, he knows that the law of averages will eventually break in his team's favor.
"We have a really close team and we’ve been working really hard at this," Nix said on earlier this week. "We’ve been in pretty much most of our recent away games—we’ve been in all of them. A few of them we just haven’t been able to close out, so I’m excited to—eventually one is going to go our way. I’m excited to get in this environment and compete."
