Everything the Denver Broncos have worked for is now in front of them. They have conquered the regular season and have the best possible position heading into the NFL postseason.
Denver, CO
Rockies walk 11 Padres but escape with fifth straight victory
SAN DIEGO — The Rockies walked the high-wire Monday night at Petco Park.
Their pitchers teetered and tottered. They walked 11 Padres batters. Count ’em, 11.
But somehow, someway, the Rockies held on to win 5-4, notching their fifth consecutive victory.
The Padres loaded the bases in the ninth against Jalen Beeks on three walks, but Beeks got Manny Machado to ground into a 5-4-3 double play to end the game.
“That was exhilarating, for sure,” a frazzled but happy Rockies manager Bud Black said. “The term ‘hang on tight’ came into play. We had to hang on tight, for sure. But it felt good. The guys in the dugout and the guys on the field erupted. But you don’t draw them up like that.”
No, you don’t.
Monday marked just the third time in franchise history that Colorado walked 11 or more and managed to win the game. In a May 12, 1995 game at Florida, Rockies pitchers walked 12 but beat the Marlins. On June 5, 1999, they walked 12 Brewers at Coors Field but managed a victory.
Black took a risk in the ninth. He visited the mound and instructed the infield to play back, looking for the double play. The strategy paid off.
“We thought there was a double-play chance with Manny, and I thought that was our best chance to win the game,” Black explained. “Even though Beeks is a high-fastball pitcher, he has a chance to get a grounder by choking off a swing with a good fastball, and that’s what he did.”
Perhaps lost in the moras of walks was an outstanding play by veteran right fielder Jake Cave. He raced in on Luis Arraez’s dying line drive and made a diving catch for the first out of the ninth.
“I was just trying to cover as much ground as possible,” Cave said. “Then I saw that I was ‘closing in, closing in,’ so then, I thought, ‘Now I’ve got try for it.’ When I’m healthy, and I’m out on the field, I’m going to go as hard as I can.”
In the final 3 1/3 innings, the Rockies relievers gave up eight walks: three by Beeks, three by Justin Lawrence and two by Jake Bird.
“Bird, Lawrence and Beeks will tell you that’s not good,” Black said.
San Diego crept to within one run, at 5-4, in the seventh on Jackson Merrill’s leadoff homer off Bird. When Bird issued back-to-back walks to Luis Campusano and Ha-Seong Kim, Colorado’s lead appeared to be disintegrating until Justin Lawrence relieved Bird and got Arraez to ground into a 6-4-3 double play. Then Lawrence got the dangerous Fernando Tatis to ground out to third baseman Ryan McMahon.
But the Rockies’ walk-fest continued in the eighth inning when Lawrence walked three to jam the bases but pulled a Houdini escape act when Campusano popped out to center.
Elehuris Montero powered Colorado to an early lead. The first baseman drove in Brenton Doyle with a single up the middle in the second. Doyle reached on a walk, stole second and advanced to third on Cave’s groundout to first.
Montero’s two-run double to left-center off starter Randy Vasquez sparked the Rockies’ four-run fourth. Back-to-back bloop singles by Charlie Blackmon and Ezequiel Tovar drove in the other two runs to put Colorado ahead, 5-1.
Rockies starter Dakota Hudson pitched his best game in a Rockies uniform, got the win and snapped a streak of eight consecutive losing decisions dating back to Sept. 11 of last season when he pitched for St. Louis.
“I felt like we had a good plan going in,” Hudson said. ‘It felt good to get than win.”
The right-hander mowed down the Padres with his bowling ball sinker for 5 2/3 innings until he threw a few gutterballs in the sixth. He issued a two-out walk to Machado and then served up a two-run homer to Jurickson Profar, who crushed his seventh bomb of the season to cut Colorado’s lead to 5-3. The switch-hitting Profar, who played with Colorado last season, hit Hudson’s first-pitch changeup deep into the right-field seats. Profar has already driven in 29 runs.
Hudson, who also mixed in an effective curveball, induced 10 outs via groundballs, struck out three, walked three and gave up just three hits. However, two of the three hits were homers, including Xander Bogaerts’ two-out solo shot in the second.
“I thought the fastball played tonight, and he had a good breaking ball,” Black said. “He threw more curveballs than he had in previous starts, so there was a little more separation of velocity. I thought that was key.”
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Denver, CO
Broncos are getting healthy heading into their first playoff game of 2025
Every team in the NFL has injuries every season. It is part of the game and to be expected.
In having a dominant regular season that secured the #1 seed in the playoffs, the Broncos have allowed themselves to get healthy by and large at the right time.
The one glaring link missing is going to be Brandon Jones, who is going to be missed on defense. He’s a versatile, physical safety who has played exceptionally well in the Broncos’ defense.
But getting back inside linebacker Dre Greenlaw is a big deal. He’s an enforcer over the middle and is capable of covering backs and tight ends in the passing game (which is what the Bills love to target).
With Brandon Jones out, the news of P.J. Locke returning is welcome news. The Broncos are thin at safety, and he’s been the #1 backup for the safety group all season long. Hopefully, he’s learned from last year’s playoff game and won’t let Josh Allen pick on him as he did in last year’s playoff game.
Another key player getting healthy is Jonathan Franklin-Myers, who is an absolute beast of an interior lineman and a pass-rushing nightmare. With the style of pass rush that the Broncos employ on mobile quarterbacks, Franklin-Myers and compatriot Jared Allen could have big games up front.
At the end of the day, the Broncos have no excuses for this game. They are healthy, prepared, and playing at home. Now they just need to go out there and execute on Saturday.
Denver, CO
‘I can only imagine what it’s going to be like’: Broncos eager to play in front of home crowd as postseason football returns to Mile High City
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — By the time Bills quarterback Josh Allen steps to the line of scrimmage, that’s already too late.
The noise — the deafening roar of more than 76,000 fans at Empower Field at Mile High — must start earlier.
The yells, the stomps, the claps and the screams, as Head Coach Sean Payton emphasized Tuesday ahead of the Broncos’ first home playoff game in a decade, must start when Allen and the Buffalo Bills enter the huddle.
In the leadup to Denver’s playoff opener, Payton has touched on the importance of the noise coming earlier. He’s pointed to the difficulty of the quarterback communicating the play call in the huddle — and how the communication breakdowns could provide an advantage for Denver’s defense.
“There’s a stress that goes with that, too,” Payton said in mid-December. “That’s stressful. Creating that stress is a big advantage.”
Payton pointed to Empower Field at Mile High as one of just a handful of stadiums in the league with a potential to be truly deafening, and he called for that level of noise again when Denver hosts the Bills. The request, too, is simple enough. In 10-second bursts, when the Bills are in the huddle and as they line up to snap the ball, the noise should boom through the stadium. And then again. And then again. And again, for each of the Bills’ offensive snaps.
As Denver looks to book a trip to the AFC Championship Game, Payton knows that would be “a huge advantage” for the Broncos.
Wide receiver Courtland Sutton, who is poised to play in his first career home playoff game, said he is eager to see how Broncos Country shows up for a long-awaited postseason matchup.
“I’ve been saying since I got here that we needed to get a home playoff game back in the city,” Sutton said. “The way that the fans have been showing up, Broncos Country has been bumping.
“… I can only imagine what it’s going to be like, first [postseason] home game since 2015. It’s well overdue, and I’m excited to see Broncos Country show up and show out.”
Cornerback Pat Surtain II said he’s also ready for a raucous environment that could help push the Broncos to a win.
“I know the atmosphere is going to be crazy,” Surtain said. “The stadium is going to be rocking at [Empower Field at] Mile High, and I’m looking forward to it. … I can already feel the magnitude of it and how electric that stadium is going to be. It’s going to be exciting.”
Playing a postseason game at home, of course, is not enough on its own to guarantee a win. During Wild Card Weekend, four of the six road teams earned victories.
“We have to be ready to play our best game,” Payton said.
In key moments, though, the Empower Field at Mile High crowd could help swing the game in Denver’s favor, whether via a miscommunication in the huddle or a pre-snap penalty. And in a battle that could come down to the very end, that could help the Broncos improve upon their 17-5 home postseason record.
“I expect it to be extremely loud,” quarterback Bo Nix said. “I expect it to be a great environment.
“… Something tells me it’ll be kicked up a notch, just because it’s got ‘playoffs’ on it.”
Denver, CO
3 No Bull Offensive Keys
Now that we’ve got some separation from the regular season and a week without Broncos football being played, I’m ruminating on what the Broncos are going to do on the field in the playoffs.
One of the big things I love about cheering for this team today is just how dynamic and cunning the coaching staff is on both sides of the ball. Sean Payton is the real deal, both as a head coach first and foremost and as an offensive coordinator. He’s constantly shifting the team’s game plan to match opponents, keep them off balance, and take advantage of weaknesses that show up on film.
As a guy who loves to play armchair coach during the season a bit, I’m going to share some ideas I have that seem like somewhat obvious tweaks to this offense we are likely to see in the postseason.
Go with the hot hand at running back
One issue I see on offense is the disparity at times in who is getting carries at running back when you look at the production on the field. Most of the last few games have seen Jaleel McLaughlin produce more consistently than RJ Harvey in raw run play production. I think one obvious thing we may see Sean Payton do is to let McLaughlin have more carries if he stays hot.
That’s not to say that I’m down on Harvey. I just think when a guy is producing, you should adjust to give that guy more carries at the running back position. RJ Harvey is a talented back who produces both on the ground and through the air (especially in the red zone).
The only aside I can see about this idea is that it is possible that McLaughlin and Harvey aren’t interchangeable from a play-call perspective. It is possible
Punish man / off coverage looks with quarterback scrambles

Bo Nix is a scrambling weapon with the ball. In the playoffs, if the defense wants to sink coverage or play man Nix will need to be quicker to take the ground yards. For much of the regular season, we’ve seen Nix stay very disciplined with wanting to throw the ball down the field on scrambles. There’s a fine line to walk with this, as sometimes you need to just punish defenses for ignoring your athletic capability.
Nix ran 83 times in 2025 and averaged 4.3 yards per carry. He easily could have had 100 carries with a more aggressive approach. Keeping Nix healthy means it is a much better idea for him not to take the risk in the regular season. He’s pretty good at taking angles out of bounds or sliding and knowing when to do that to avoid big hits, though.
The Broncos’ offense doesn’t really scare anyone, but adding this wrinkle in the postseason should help open things up quite a bit.
Get Mims and Franklin some deep shots

Easily the most frustrating thing about the Broncos’ offense this season has been their inability to connect on their deep shots. Nix hasn’t dialed in his accuracy deep down the field yet, which is a shame. The Broncos end up in a lot of man coverage situations and rarely are able to capitalize.
In the postseason, it is time to change that. We have both Marvin Mims and Troy Franklin, who are superb deep pass targets with killer speed. If the Broncos can get their run game production geared up, they absolutely will have opportunities to hit these deep plays.
Bonus No Bull thoughts on Sean Payton

Don’t get lulled to sleep by the last few games of the season. Everyone who knows football sees the same thing I have in my game reviews: Payton kept things vanilla on purpose.
It is a hard thing to watch a team go run, run, pass ad nauseum (am I right, Broncos fans who “enjoyed” the Dan Reeves era with John Elway?). That was strategic, not senile.
Sean Payton is one of the brightest offensive minds in the game (with all due respect to Kyle Shanahan, Andy Reid, and Sean McVay). He knows exactly where this team is at and what is at stake in the postseason. The Bills are going to have to go back to some old tape to try to sort out what our offense is about.
No matter what they prepare for, I expect a good dose of plays that they won’t know are coming. The world at large may think that the Bills are Goliath. That’s just fine. Payton knows exactly how dangerous a team can be when everyone thinks your team is a bunch of young Davids.
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