Sean Payton’s knows the Broncos can’t live in one-score games forever

The final score was 20-13. Another one-score game as again the Denver Broncos erased a second-half deficit. Honestly, it was a Sunday that felt a lot like 2025.

Sean Payton was fully aware of the tension in that on Monday.

The Broncos tied an NFL record last season with 11 one-score victories en route to a 14-3 finish, and Payton has spent the entire offseason acknowledging those margins aren’t sustainable. Two games into 2026, Denver is 1-1 — with a blowout loss and a tight win.

So when Payton was asked whether his team has built the traits to keep winning these close, he didn’t offer a simple yes.

“I think in a fair response to that, I think there are two things,” Payton said. “We know this, that if at the start of the season we’re not addressing maybe some of the things that kept games a year ago close, that analytically speaking, it’s hard to say you’re going to repeat the same, call it, 11 wins that you had maybe a year ago.”

But it’s not a bad thing to be able to win when it gets tight.

“I also think there’s a confidence level in a team that because they’ve won before, they’ve been behind before, and then how do they respond?” Payton said. “So I think on the positive side, it’s that confidence having been here before.”

That duality — the belief forged in close games versus the coaching urgency to avoid needing it — has defined Denver’s trajectory under Payton. In his second season, 2024, the Broncos went just 1-6 in one-score games despite finishing 10-7. Last year they flipped that number.

Sunday’s comeback against Jacksonville followed the same script. The Jaguars, winners of nine straight regular-season games entering the afternoon, built a 13-3 lead early in the third quarter before the Broncos rattled off 17 unanswered points. Jaylen Waddle broke out for 138 receiving yards, Jonah Coleman punched in the go-ahead touchdown and the defense clamped down after a shaky start.

Payton pointed to Jacksonville’s playoff loss to Buffalo last January — a game that came down to a final drive — as evidence the Broncos weren’t just grinding out a win against a weak roster.

“That’s a good team we played,” Payton said. “There was this feeling like that was a good football team and we knew it was going to be a hard-fought game.”

Still, Payton wants to eliminate the need for winning tight games, and he was candid about the areas that remain unfinished.

“There has to be a sense of urgency,” Payton said. “We’re going to play in other games where that first half, for instance, won’t get it done.”

Denver hosts the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday night, another test of whether the Broncos can build early leads rather than chase them. Payton framed the challenge in coaching terms: find ways to keep games from reaching the margins. But he also knows his locker room carries something that can’t be schemed — the memory of 11 times last season when the scoreboard said they maybe shouldn’t win and they won anyway.

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