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The Broncos are getting big returns from the Sutton-Nix pairing

Dec 2, 2024, 1:48 AM | Updated: 12:46 pm

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — For Courtland Sutton to produce like a proper WR1, all it took was a rookie quarterback, a second year in Sean Payton’s scheme and the willingness to put in the extra time and diligence in practice to find chemistry and on-field alignment.

Those are relatively simple ingredients — at least on the surface. The actual work and application of those components is far more complex. But that doesn’t make it any less notable.

“One thing that I admire about him is he practices every day extremely hard,” that first-year quarterback, Bo Nix, said of Sutton. “He’s out here practicing like it is a playoff game or it is the Super Bowl. He gets every rep.

“He hates missing a rep. He hates having to sub in and out. But that’s just him.”

Success for Sutton looks different than it did under some previous quarterbacks. He flourished in 2019 when moonball tosser Joe Flacco was lobbing deep passes toward the heavens; his 636 yards during those eight Flacco starts is the second-most productive 8-game stretch of his career, exceeded only by a span that included Flacco’s final six starts and the first two of Brandon Allen in November 2019.

But Sutton appears on his way to being back at that level. And in the last five weeks, he’s accumulating yards at a rate unseen in his career.

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467

That is Sutton’s yardage figure over the last five games, which gives him the most prolific 5-game stretch for any Broncos pass catcher since the late Demaryius Thomas had 477 receiving yards from Week 4 through Week 9 of the 2015 season, the campaign of the Broncos’ last postseason trip and Super Bowl 50 win.

It’s a product of the cohesion between Nix and Sutton. And considering that the last time a Broncos receiver averaged 90.0 yards per game over a 5-game run was with Peyton Manning, it’s fair to evaluate that the quarterback quandary in which the Broncos found themselves was a reason why it took so long to get back to this level of individual production.

But now that Nix and Sutton are on the same page …

“I think that it’s only going to continue to keep growing,” Sutton said.

But there’s another receiver playing Monday who’s also enjoying one of the best stretches of his career.

379

That is the yardage tally for Jerry Jeudy over the last four games since Jameis Winston became Cleveland’s starting quarterback. Only a 4-game stretch with Russell Wilson at quarterback late in 2022 was more productive for Jeudy; he had 385 yards in that run.

Cleveland is experiencing what Denver saw from time to time with its 2020 first-round pick — moments that lasted multiple games where he showed why the Broncos not only picked him with the No. 15 overall choice that year, but did so over other receivers such as Dallas’ CeeDee Lamb and Minnesota’s Justin Jefferson.

“When he cuts on a dime or making a juke move or something like that, ball inhis hands and stuff like that, it’s actually amazing to see,” said safety P.J. Locke. “Not many receivers have that type of twitch.”

7

Consecutive games just before bye weeks that teams coached by Sean Payton have won. This includes last season’s 24-9 Broncos win over the Kansas City Chiefs that snapped Denver’s 16-game losing streak in the series.

In that span — which began in 2016 — NFL teams have a .549 winning percentage overall in their pre-bye games.

With a win Monday night, the Broncos would have a 7-2 pre-bye record since 2016. That would be the NFL’s second-best mark heading into bye weeks in that span, exceeded by only the Philadelphia Eagles, who are 8-1 in that scenario.

Also, over his 16 previous seasons as a head coach, Payton-led teams are 13-3 in games heading into their bye.

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