When the Broncos step onto the field at Levi’s Stadium this afternoon to take on the undefeated 49ers, only a slim majority of Denver fans believe the team can mount a comeback if it comes to that.
After two weeks of thrilling victories thanks to come-from-behind, fourth-quarter comebacks (the best kind of wins, tbh), there is doubt within Broncos Country that such heroic tactics are sustainable.
But you know who does believe it?
Head coach Sean Payton, and more importantly, quarterback Bo Nix.
That
doesn’t mean the coach or team is gaming for second-half surges, but hero-like comebacks aren’t a problem either.
“Honestly, I think the huddle’s calm. We just have a very calm huddle. Smooth in and out, we don’t panic. Nobody really has to say much, but we’re all just motivating each other and encouraging each other,” Nix said earlier this week. “I think once you do it a few times, you just know you can do it. …At the end of the day, it’s just doing it over and over and knowing I have the guys to go out there and go on a game-winning drive because we’ve done it against many, many good teams.”
The Broncos are currently last in the NFL for first-half scoring, and Payton would definitely like to change that.
“We certainly recognize it’s not good, but that has to improve and it’s not just me up here talking,” Payton said of the slow starts so far this season. “When I go through the PowerPoints right now, the Week 3 rankings, we don’t even look at. We just recognize it isn’t good. It has to improve.”
The good news is that Payton’s record in October is historically very good.
In fact, his .761 winning percentage during October is the best in NFL history among guys who coached at least 50 games in the month. And he let the team know it, emphasizing why his teams have played winning football in October.
“As we called everyone up [in the huddle, the message] was, ‘October was good for us a year ago, and that’s because you guys made it a priority during the week,'” Payton said Wednesday. “It was kind of back to that. We’re early in this race. We have to be finding these areas that don’t become another mistake [in] Week 5 or Week 6.”
The Niners will be a huge test of that progress during the week.
