Denver just tied a 17-year-old NFL record, and somehow that’s supposed to make me trust this team more, not less. The Denver Broncos beat the Kansas City Chiefs 28-24 on Sunday to reach 15 consecutive wins decided by one score, matching the mark the 2008-09 Indianapolis Colts set and nobody has sniffed since. Fifteen games. Fifteen chances for one wrong bounce to end the whole thing, and fifteen times Denver found the right one instead.
Call that discipline if you want.
I’d call it a team operating with zero margin for error that has decided to make a personality out of it, which is its own kind of terrifying to watch every Sunday.
Kansas City led 24-13 early in the fourth quarter, the kind of cushion that usually turns Arrowhead into a party. Then Bo Nix got to work. He closed the quarter 5-of-6 for 84 yards and two touchdowns, good for a 158.3 passer rating in the stretch Denver actually needed it, part of a 20-of-32, 222-yard day overall. A 2-yard touchdown to tight end Nate Adkins, followed by a two-point conversion to Jaylen Waddle, cut the deficit to 24-21 and flipped the building’s whole mood.
Rookie running back Jonah Coleman did the rest. A 51-yard catch-and-run put Denver at the 5-yard line with the clock bleeding out, and shortly after, Coleman punched in the go-ahead score himself on the ground, capping a 104-scrimmage-yard day. 28-24, Denver, with the hardest part still ahead of them.
Kansas City drove all the way to Denver’s 1-yard line with under two minutes left, inches from flipping the whole script back their way. A false start on right tackle Jaylon Moore backed the Chiefs up to the 6, forcing a second fourth-and-goal snap. With Nik Bonitto collapsing the pocket beside him, Malcolm Roach dropped Patrick Mahomes for a 6-yard loss with four seconds on the clock.
Ballgame.
Bo Nix and Malcolm Roach keep bailing them out, one with his arm and one with his hands, and that has become the actual identity of this roster. It also happens to be the same defense that had its worst tackling game since 2018 just weeks ago, which makes Roach’s goal-line stop read less like routine and more like a unit that remembered how to finish a play.
Sean Payton called it “proud of just the grit” after the game, which is the kind of quote you give when your team keeps lighting matches near the gas can and somehow nobody gets burned.
https://twitter.com/Broncos/status/2117097201499271202
Patrick Mahomes, for his part, said afterward that he wished he’d gotten the ball out faster on that final snap. Fair enough. He had four seconds and a Pro Bowl pass rush in his face, and most quarterbacks don’t get that honest about it on the spot.
Nix’s night did something bigger than extend a streak, too. The win was also his 15th career game-winning fourth-quarter drive in three NFL seasons, a number that broke Dak Prescott’s record outright instead of just tying it. Two separate streaks hit historic marks on the same final drive: Denver’s habit of surviving by a single score, and Nix’s personal habit of being the reason they do.
Denver’s margins have been this thin all season, and that cuts both ways. A quarterback who specializes in desperate, late execution is a genuinely great asset to have. It’s also proof that the group in front of him keeps needing him to be one, week after week, because somebody up front or in the secondary let the game get that close again in the first place.
Fifteen straight by one score is either a dynasty hiding in plain sight or a countdown clock. Denver keeps betting it’s the first one. I’m not ready to bet against Malcolm Roach making another stop, but I’m not ready to bet on it forever, either.
