Broncos embrace clutch ethos, but they’d like a comfortable win for a change

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Just because the Broncos are proficient at winning the white-knucklers doesn’t mean they necessarily want to be in them.

Sure, no team in the last two months has been better at winning the close ones. Ever since the Broncos defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 5, they haven’t lost a one-score game — and all of those games have been decided by four or fewer points. Denver went from a 2-8 mark in one-score games from the start of the 2024 season through September to its current seven-game winning streak in such contests.

“I’m sure it’s been done before, this crazy stuff that we’ve been a part of,” right tackle Mike McGlinchey said. “You just gotta find ways to win. And no matter how that comes about, you gotta do what you gotta do. And so that’s what we figured out how to do this year. And, certainly it’s good to be on the winning side of these things. Obviously, there’s always things to learn and clean up from each victory and each game that you play. But we like where we’re at, and we’re getting the job done.”

But that said …

“We don’t enjoy being that close at the end of the game,” cornerback Riley Moss said. “I’m gonna lose hair. I’m gonna end up bald at 35.”

 

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For some, the hair follicles might leave the scalp. For others, they might remain, but go prematurely gray.

What Moss and the Broncos would like is more games of the ilk of their Week 8 win over the Dallas Cowboys: get out in front, build a multi-score lead and stay there. Dictate the terms of the game from start to finish.

But it is nice to know that this team can succeed in a place where — until September — it feiled.

“100% percent. We’ve been in that position so much that now it’s kind of second nature,” Moss said. “And we don’t want to be in that position. Obviously we want to be able to beat ’em early and get up. But we’ve been in that position enough where we’re all confident and we don’t blink.”

BRONCOS’ TURNING POINT: BEATING PHILADELPHIA

Just seven teams in NFL history have played in more games decided by four or fewer points in a season than the Broncos, who have already reached that total of nine in 11 games. But none have more wins games decided by four or fewer points; last Sunday’s 27-26 win moved the Broncos into a tie with five other teams, most recently the 2003 Carolina Panthers.

Those seven close wins have come in an eight-game stretch, a remarkable run unseen in NFL annals. The 1989 Green Bay Packers had five wins by four points or fewer in a six-game stretch; no one has ever had seven wins by four points or fewer in an eight-game run.

That afore-mentioned 21-17 win over the Philadelphia Eagles was the pivot. Turning points don’t come more obviously than that, and given the Broncos’ form in close games since then, the team seems to be the embodiment of Sean Payton’s oft-uttered phrase “confidence comes from demonstrated ability.” Once it demonstrated the capability of winning a tight game, other victories followed to where it became that “second nature” of which Moss speaks.

“I hadn’t thought about that one. I guess that’s it,” McGlinchey said. “When you prove you can do something and you kind of grease that groove, right, like, you’re always confident that you can find it again.

“And each situation plays out differently. Each game plays out differently, and certainly the personnel that you’re playing against obviously is very different. But at its core, there are certain things that you need to do well. And, we’ve done those things late in games, in two-minute situations defensively and offensively and we’ve been able to score more points than the other team and that’s all that matters.”

To illustrate that, just one team — Dallas — has more touchdowns in the final two minutes of each half than the Broncos, who have six so far this season.

Denver has a skill that should serve them well in the postseason, when games are decided at the margins, and often by which side buckles under pressure. But that doesn’t mean the team wouldn’t mind a game in which its players could kick back and smile in the final moments with the spoils of victory securely in their grasp — a welcome change from the tension-fraught duels that have become the norm in a season that has aged some by a decade.

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