This week can show the Sean Payton era will be different

MIAMI — The Broncos weren’t going to show that things were truly different in the last two weeks.

Yes, the team led by Sean Payton could have won against the Las Vegas Raiders and Washington Commanders. It’s not hard to point to an individual play in each game and say, “If it had gone the other way, the result would have changed.”

Life in the NFL for those teams in the muddled middle transpires on a knife’s edge. In Weeks 1 and 2, the Broncos were on the business end of the blade.

And that brings the Broncos to Week 3. The stifling humidity of South Florida beckons. The calendar may officially say, “autumn,” but in the realm of the royal palm trees, that word has a different meaning than it does in many of the other 48 contiguous states.

And history is not on the Broncos’ side as this game beckons, as we see in this week’s pregame Three Numbers.

58 years, 13 days

Time elapsed since the Broncos last lost 12 consecutive true away games in succession.

Denver carries an 11-game losing streak in non-neutral road games into Sunday’s contest. Their only win away from Denver since November 2021 came against the Jacksonville Jaguars in London last year. Technically, the Broncos were the visiting team, although the crowd noise said otherwise.

A loss to Miami on Sunday wills the Broncos match the longest skid in true, non-neutral-site away games in club history. Denver ended that run — which spanned through four games in the 1963 season, seven in 1964 and the opener of 1965 — with a 27-10 triumph at Boston on Sept. 24, 1965.

This is the sort of trend the Broncos hired Sean Payton to change.

3.43

That is average number of touchdowns allowed by the Broncos since Week 14 of last year. Only two teams have allowed more touchdowns per game in that span. What’s more, the Broncos allowed an average of 3 touchdowns in each of the last two games — which is better than the average in the last five games of the 2022 season, when they yielded 3.6 touchdowns per game.

And even if you take a pair of defensive touchdowns out of the equation, the Broncos still permitted 3.2 touchdowns per game in the final four contests of their doomed 2022 season.

It’s important to note this when evaluating the Broncos’ defensive form so far this season. Denver’s defensive struggles did not start with this season. And Vance Joseph does have a restoration job in front of him after inheriting a unit that decidedly went in the wrong direction last season — particularly after the trade of Bradley Chubb.

1-9

The Broncos’ record against the Dolphins in Miami. The unfathomable Tim Tebow-led comeback of 2011 remains Denver’s only win over the Dolphins in South Florida — although at least the Broncos can count a Super Bowl XXXIII triumph over the Atlanta Falcons on their ledger of trips to Miami-Dade County.

One particularly fascinating aspect of the Broncos’ generally fruitless trips to Miami against the Dolphins is passing inaccuracy. Just twice in 10 regular-season games here have the Broncos even completed 50 percent of their passes — in 2001 and 1975. In each of their last three games, Broncos quarterbacks failed to connect on more than half of their passes. Expect that to change Sunday, no matter what the eventual scoreboard outcome turns out to be.

So, the Broncos are in a road funk, and they find themselves in a place where they have struggled in nearly all of their infrequent visits since 1966.

What better way for the team to announce that the Sean Payton Era will be different than with a victory in a place where recent history, long-term trends and current injuries make it seem unlikely?

***