Bo Nix Tells Albert Breer About Why the Broncos ‘Didn’t Flinch’ in 11th Straight Win

Denver is closing in on the AFC’s top seed. Plus, Matthew Stafford’s MVP-type play, Patrick Mahomes’s injury and much more in our Week 15 NFL takeaways.

Bo Nix and the Broncos have now won 11 consecutive games. / Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

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1. Denver Broncos
2. Los Angeles Rams
3. Kansas City Chiefs
4. Los Angeles Chargers
5. Baltimore Ravens
6. Jacksonville Jaguars
7. Buccaneers-Falcons
8. Refereeing changes
9. Bills’ emotional weekend
10. Quick-hitters

Time for the takeaways and as part of this week’s package, we have a separate story on the Bills’ scintillating comeback win. Let’s go …

Denver Broncos

The Broncos are damn impressive. And their high-level play was most on display in big moments when the team seemed the least in control on Sunday.

A 40-yard touchdown run by Josh Jacobs on the opening possession of the second half put the Packers up 23–14 at Mile High. A three-and-out to follow gave the Packers a chance to create separation and take a crowd primed like it hadn’t been in a decade out of the game.

“We didn’t flinch,” quarterback Bo Nix told me postgame. “Overall, we just didn’t pay attention to the score. We knew we had a lot of game left.”

It’s fair to say that approach worked. All-world corner Patrick Surtain II picked off Jordan Love in spectacular fashion, deep down the field, on the game’s next snap. Then, Nix and the offense went 71 yards in seven plays, without even getting into a third down. The rest was academic, as the Broncos finished the game on a 20–3 run to score a 34–26 win.

That’s 11 consecutive wins for the Broncos, who improved to 12–2. And it’ll give them a chance over the next 11 days to lock up the AFC’s No. 1 seed. With wins over the Jaguars next Sunday, and the Chiefs—now led by Gardner Minshew II—on Christmas, home-field advantage is theirs.

Even better, on this particular Sunday, they were able to find another way to win.

This time, it wasn’t about Nix and the team’s passing game at the end, as it has been in spurts. It was about that all the way through, with Nix throwing for 302 yards, four touchdowns and a 134.7 rating on 23-of-34 passing against a salty Packers defense. And more specifically, it was about Nix and his trusted star Courtland Sutton in all the big spots.

“I trust him as much as I’ve trusted any receiver I’ve ever played with,” Nix said. “And I trust him because of the work he puts in throughout the week.”

The resulting chemistry is more obvious by the week. It was there on the go-ball he threw to Sutton to cap that 71-yard drive in the third quarter. It was even more so on fourth-and-2 with 9:03 left, when Nix could’ve checked the ball down, and instead threw another go to Sutton for 26 yards. That put the Broncos on the Packers’ 15. Four plays later, they hit paydirt to make it 34–26.

“It wasn’t like we just hit it for the first time in the game today,” Nix said. “We’ve thrown that throw, and I just feel comfortable throwing it to him. He gets space and separation, and I throw it up there to him, knowing he’s going to make a play on the ball. It makes me mad because the play before that on third-and-manageable, I missed him on a good flag route. But I just continue to go back to him, knowing he’s going to be available.”

And these sorts of things, now, are happening all over the Broncos’ roster. Another example, on defense, just as Surtain made that massive play, his bookend, Riley Moss, made a couple of huge plays, including another pick of Love.

The result is a team full of players who trust one another to make the biggest plays when it matters most. The current winning streak, interestingly enough, was preceded by a two-game losing streak—the first loss coming as a result of a leverage penalty on a field goal in Indianapolis, the other on a Justin Herbert hero play in L.A.

Since then, the Broncos have taken every game like that, and they’ve had plenty, and the rest of them, too. Their next game, against Jacksonville, will be three months to the day since their last loss. The game after that might be their last road trip until, if they make it that far, the Super Bowl. And their chances of advancing should be enhanced by getting more Sundays like this one, played in the thin air, and in front of a rejuvenated fanbase.

“The crowd was electric,” Nix said. “It was a reason why the second half played out the way it did. They stayed in the game with us, and we were able to give them enough plays to spark that atmosphere. It was hostile tonight; it was tough for a team to come in. It felt like a playoff environment—loud. It wasn’t a fun place [for another team] to play. I think we’re building something. And we’re not just building something. I think we’re getting back to what is normal around here.”

If you followed the NFL for long enough, you know exactly what he means by that.

And that it’s justified.

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Matthew Stafford and the Rams will play the Seahawks for first place in the NFC North on Thursday. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Los Angeles Rams

The Rams can win every which way. But there’s one way that still works pretty well—and that’s the one they leaned on Sunday after falling behind 24–14 with 30 seconds left in the first half. It’s also one that showed the difference Matthew Stafford makes.

Most teams in that spot would play conservatively and be O.K. with going into the locker room to regroup. The Rams, as we’ve seen all year, aren’t most teams.

A checkdown to Kyren Williams for 10 yards and a shot to Puka Nacua for 37 later, and the Rams were lining up for a chip-shot field goal that made it a one-possession game again, and gave the hosts momentum for what would be a 17–0 third quarter to key a 41–34 win. It happened because, well, it seems like anything can happen with No. 9 at the trigger in L.A.

“That’s what it feels like, honestly,” Williams told me. “Matthew can make any throw out there on the field. And I got so much confidence in it, it’s so crazy. I know that if I can protect my own, if I can do my 1/11 of the job, Matthew’s gonna get that ball out on time, to Puka, to Davante [Adams], to Colby [Parkinson], to T-Ferg [Terrance Ferguson]. No matter who it is, the ball is gonna be completed.

“Being able to have a guy like that back there, man, it gives you so much confidence.”

Sean McVay’s playing with that and, to be clear, it’s not just Stafford.

This is a rugged team, steeled from the struggles of the past with Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers, and the coach’s determination to right any wrongs from those days. Accordingly, Williams and Blake Corum combined for 149 yards rushing and three touchdowns on 26 carries, while the vaunted Lions ground game was held to just 70 yards on 20 carries.

It’s also a mentally strong group, capable of coming from behind and grinding out the tough yards at the end of games—like the ones Williams got to finish the Lions on Sunday.

“I don’t know if there’s much difference between this year’s team and last year’s team, but I know one thing for sure—that this team is built for it,” Williams said. “Coach McVay hit us on that early on in the season, throughout training camp, that we’re built for whatever it is. I think these guys on this team have taken that mindset and really ran with it.”

And that mindset starts with a quarterback who’s playing at an otherworldly level. With three games left, Stafford has 3,722 yards, 37 touchdown passes against only five picks, a 112.2 passer rating. That’s part of why, now at 11–3, Stafford was serenaded with MVP chants as he re-entered the locker room after beating his old team on Sunday.

That wasn’t just for show, either. When I asked Williams if Stafford, in his mind, should be the MVP, he didn’t miss a beat—“C’mon, man. Yes.”

And if the Rams have their way,  that won’t be the only trophy he takes home.

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Kansas City Chiefs

Elsewhere in the AFC West, the news on Patrick Mahomes was obviously awful. And that was felt by both the Chiefs and their Sunday opponent from Los Angeles.

“It sucks to see anyone go down,” Chargers linebacker Daiyan Henley said, over the phone postgame. “The reason I say anybody is because there was a lot of people who touched the dirt today. I just felt myself going to my knee a lot of times and having to send out a prayer. To see a leader of their team, a leader of this game, leader of this league, go down like that, I send my prayers to him. I send my prayers to everyone who plays this game, because this is a tough game.

“We all know he’s going to be back, and I told his teammates, Please send my respect to him, because he wasn’t out there for me to give it to him myself.”

I think that encapsulates the feeling around the NFL right now.

It’s just a huge bummer.

Mahomes is the most recognizable face in the game, its biggest star, and most decorated and accomplished player. Beyond just that, he’s wildly popular with his peers, and for good reason—that East Texas kid you saw towing around a case of Coors Light with Josh Allen during The Match is exactly who he is. Relatable. Exuberant. A genuinely good guy.

Now, if you want to pivot to where this goes next, much rides on the extent of the ligament damage. If it’s a clean tear, just the ACL, then returning for training camp might not be out of the question. If it’s a multi-ligament injury, the start of next season could be in question.

More on that should come out in the coming days. And whatever it is could color how the Chiefs retool this offseason—with their biggest apparent needs being at the skill spots.

For now, though, as Henley said, it’s fair to say it just sucks seeing this.

Even if your team is one of the many Mahomes has tormented.

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Los Angeles Chargers

That said, that was another big win for the Chargers. To describe it, Henley took me back to a moment his defense had with coordinator Jesse Minter last week.

“Jesse gave us a huge speech about how this team was built to beat the Chiefs—and specifically because they’ve had a decade of running this division,” the third-year star said. “And [the coaches] came together, and they talked about how we can beat them. It’s a testament to the coaching staff and how we prepare for these types of battles.”

The final was 16–13, and the Chargers got there, and to their first season sweep of the Chiefs in 12 years, through a series of examples of what Henley was describing.

Maybe the best one came on the play Henley made himself. The Chargers were clutching that 16–13 edge with 12:47 left, and had the Chiefs in third-and-12 at the L.A. 17. Mahomes took the shotgun snap and Henley followed his coaching.

“We know that it’s a lot of five out for them—five out basically meaning that the running back is going to be involved in the pass game, especially down in the red zone,” Henley said. “The second detail is when Mahomes is on the run, he always has a second play. So for me, identifying that the running back was out, getting to him, making sure I was latched on, and then the second thing is, making sure I stayed on him, because the second play was about to begin. It’s not about the first play; it’s about winning the second play with Mahomes.”

So Henley followed Kareem Hunt on a swing route out of the backfield, saw Mahomes try to break contain (Khalil Mack wouldn’t let him), and felt Hunt turn the play up toward the goal line. From there, he basically ran the route for Hunt, and was there to pick it off at the 1-yard line.

The Chargers then went on a seven-minute drive that showed, again, even without pillars Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater, their Jim Harbaugh–harvested identity has gone nowhere.

“Those are huge pieces—fundamental pieces to our team then and now, so losing them is pivotal,” Henley said. “But it’s about the team. We talk a lot about individuals and what they do as a collective. So for us, we lost two great individuals, but it’s about the collective now.”

That collective, over the past week, beat both of last year’s Super Bowl teams, despite Justin Herbert undergoing surgery on a broken hand, along with the aforementioned absences. That collective’s won six of seven, and is 10–4. And that collective’s going to be interesting to see against the Cowboys, Texans and Broncos the next three weeks.

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The Ravens have had a streaky season, but they avenged their Thanksgiving night loss to the Bengals on Sunday. / Albert Cesare/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Baltimore Ravens

The Ravens remain relatively dangerous. Baltimore has only two losses since its Week 7 bye. One was last week against Pittsburgh, a game that some believe Isaiah Likely actually won with what wound up being called a noncatch in the end zone. The other came the week before that—on Thanksgiving night—and the Ravens avenged that one Sunday, beating the Bengals worse (24–0) than the Bengals beat them (32–14) two weeks ago.

So what to make of a Ravens team that lost four in a row, then won five straight, then lost two before Sunday’s shutout win in frigid Cincinnati?

It depends on when you ask that question.

But for this week, the Ravens looked like a team that’s learned and grown from its stumbles, in coming back and blanking a Joe Burrow offense, while running for 189 yards in the cold.

“It definitely left a sour taste in our mouths,” safety Alohi Gilman told me. “As a defense, we felt like we gave them a couple of situations in both those games we lost to the divisional opponents where we could have locked in a little better. It was good for us to take a look at what areas of our play we got to be better at—whether it be that middle eight of the game or finishing that second half better.

“We had to be just a little bit more situationally in tune with each other, and that just comes with practice and preparation.”

Along those lines, the Bengals’ first two possessions got inside the Ravens’ 30—and big Baltimore plays short-circuited both, with a 15-yard sack and a pick leaving Cincinnati without a single point from either. As for the “middle eight” Gilman referenced, a touchdown going into halftime and a field goal coming out of it put Baltimore up, 17–0.

Then, there was Kyle Van Noy picking off Burrow and pitching to Gilman for an 84-yard return that essentially finished off the 2025 Bengals, who are now eliminated from the playoff picture.

It also helped put the shutout in the books—“I don’t care if it’s Joe Burrow or a rookie quarterback, that’s not easy to do,” Gilman said—and made next week’s game even bigger for Baltimore.

They’ll host the 11–3 Patriots on Sunday Night Football.

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Jacksonville Jaguars

A lot of credit to Liam Coen and the Jaguars on their 10th win. But here’s one thing I don’t think should be overlooked, as Jacksonville tries to hold off the red-hot Texans in the AFC South: That young staff is really starting to maximize guys.

Travis Etienne Jr. was one example on Sunday in the Jags’ 48–20 win over the Jets. The fifth-year back had three catches for 73 yards on Sunday, scoring on all three of them.

“It’s coaches understanding our skill set and using our potential, maximizing each and every guy, by finding mismatches out on the field,” Etienne told me postgame. “[Coen’s] doing a great job seeing things. He has done a great job of calling the plays.”

And Etienne explained that beyond his own statistical production, pointing out how he was used as a decoy on both of explosive rookie back Bhayshul Tuten’s touches for 23 yards and a touchdown—“I had two defenders drawn to me, and he came wide open.”

In turn, those sorts of things wind up benefitting the quarterback, too, and over the past few weeks, that’s started to show in Trevor Lawrence’s production. Since Thanksgiving, the fifth-year quarterback has thrown for nine touchdowns without a pick, has had a triple-digit passer rating in all three games, and peaked with 336 yards and five touchdowns on Sunday.

“The way he’s seeing the field, that totally stems from coach Coen—he’s just locked in,” Etienne continued. “The game’s slowed down for him. He has a great understanding of the game plan and what coach wants.”

It sure looks like everyone in Jacksonville is locked in.

And next week we’ll get a great look at where the Jags are, with their trip to Denver.

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Buccaneers-Falcons

The Thursday night game was a study in how being on the “hot seat” at this time of year can be fully transferable. Because just as the football-viewing public went into that one looking at the Atlanta brass—and specifically GM Terry Fontenot and coach Raheem Morris—as fighting for their lives, the narratives coming out of Tampa Bay’s collapse centered on the future of Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles.

So I figured, in the aftermath of Atlanta storming back from a 28–14 deficit with three scores in the fourth quarter of a 29–28 win—one that necessitated digging out of a third-and-28 on the final possession—we’d look at where both teams are.

• Let’s start with Bowles, who has, on balance, done a really nice job winning division titles in each of his three years since taking over for Bruce Arians after the 2021 season. He’s been competitive in the playoffs and signed an extension in June, which keeps him under contract through the three seasons after this one.

On the flip side, we’ve been here before. There were rumblings in NFL circles about Bowles’s job security last year, when the team was 4–6, before it recovered to finish 10–7. Ditto for the year before, when the team was 4–7, before it dug out of that hole to get to 9–8.

Right now, Tampa is 7–7. On its face, given the goodwill Bowles should have built up after three-plus years, that’s not a fireable offense. But the Buccaneers have lost five of six, and two of their final three games are against the Panthers, with whom they’re tied atop the NFC South. So a failure to win a fourth consecutive division title could lead to some reassessment on where things are. I don’t think, right now, Bowles will be fired. But we’ll see how the next three weeks go.

• Going in, this looked like one of those referendum games for a regime on the ropes, with the Falcons at 4–9, having lost seven of their previous eight, playing in a stand-alone window.

So I asked around a little before the game. From what I could gather, owner Arthur Blank doesn’t want to make big-picture changes during the season, and isn’t forcing small-picture changes for now. The idea would be to gather all the information he can and make that call after the season ends. And that, to me, isn’t good or bad news for Fontenot and Morris—it just gives them a chance to give the franchise some light at the end of the tunnel.

Battling like they did in Tampa is a start. They have the Cardinals, Rams and Saints left on the schedule, so winning two of three, I think, would give them a case to stay. And Blank’s been patient in the past. We’ll see what happens.

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Refereeing changes

Refereeing is going to be a topic of conversation this offseason. You’ve complained about it. Talk shows all over the country have discussed it. And I’m on the record with my feelings that it’s become too tangled and complicated, and needs to be torn to the studs and rebuilt.

Last week, the NFL sent its first signal that it’s listening.

The owners had their winter meeting—virtually, after deciding to scrap the annual tradition of meeting in Dallas—and officiating was indeed on the agenda. It was, first and foremost, because the league’s CBA with the referees’ union expires at the end of May. With that in mind, they set goals for the negotiation that went out in a memo to teams after the meeting.

Among them …

• Establishing a system that ties compensation to performance, with only high-performing officials sharing in the postseason bonus pool.
• Getting more flexibility in postseason assignments, by eliminating seniority as a factor.
• Creating mandatory training and development programs for new and underperforming officials.
• Extending the probationary period through which new officials are judged and can be removed.
• Shortening the dead period, when the league can’t contact officials, which runs from the Super Bowl to May 15.

Of course, left unsaid in the memo were the financial ramifications of these changes, and those are usually (if not always) central to the CBA negotiations. The NFLRA has routinely pushed back on changes to the offseason, because so many of its members have lucrative day jobs they’re not looking to give up. On the flip side, the NFL has lost officials in recent years in struggling to keep up with what media outlets will pay them to come in as experts.

And I think all this will lead to changes, maybe significant ones, this offseason. Which, as I see it anyway, are badly needed.

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Bills’ emotional weekend

Real life intervened over the weekend. As regular-season games go, Sunday was a big one for the Bills. But it may not have seemed that way after they checked into their hotel in downtown Providence on Saturday night.

They got the news of the atrocities at Brown University like everyone else.

The difference, in this case, was that the Bills were only about a mile away from where two were shot dead and nine others were injured in America’s latest mass shooting. On Sunday morning, I made some calls on their situation. The overall reaction I got from the team: We’re fine, focus on the victims, the students, the families, the first responders and not us. Which, I thought, was very appropriate.

Internally, though, the Bills were a bit shaken, and did react.

“There are things in life that are more important than football,” coach Sean McDermott told me after his team beat the Patriots. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved. What an unfortunate and tragic situation. It’s a shame that happens in our world. It happened in Australia, too, recently here, the last 24, 48 hours. … The parents, I’m sure that that was not an easy situation. I can’t even imagine, as a parent myself, what this is like to go through.

“We’re praying with hands folded, that they know that we’re here if they need anything. Just being nearby was unnerving, to be honest with you. You could hear sirens going. I tried to look out my window a few times. And yet, we were trying to be safe as well. There was a shelter-in-place mandate, so we tried to help everyone out by doing that. We said a prayer last night when we started my team meeting, for everybody involved. It’s very unfortunate and a shame that that goes on.”

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Philip Rivers took the Seahawks down to the final minute in his return to the NFL. / Kevin Ng-Imagn Images

Quick-hitters

And with that, let’s get to this week’s quick-hitters …

• I love that Philip Rivers is back, and I love that he’s doing it because he loves football that much, and that he’d like to give the kids he coaches, and his own kids, a little inspiration. And it’s too bad that the back-shoulder third-down throw to Alec Pierce to set up the go-ahead field goal won’t be remembered the way it should be.

• Preparing for Rivers was a challenge for the Seahawks. The staff did, I’m told, go back and look at Rivers’s old tape. But to some degree, the Seahawks’ staff was chasing a moving target, in that Shane Steichen and Rivers had a deep library to draw from based on all their experience together. So they just prepared for what Indy had shown, and adjusted on the fly.

• Seahawks-Rams should be a blast Thursday (and congrats to Sean and Veronika McVay, who are welcoming their second son this week—he may have arrived by the time you read this).

• That’s two in a row for Kellen Moore’s Saints. And don’t look now, but Tyler Shough is playing pretty good football. Not good enough, as I see it, to walk away from something truly special if that’s presented to New Orleans in the draft. But maybe good enough to give the team flexibility to pass on quarterbacks early in the draft, if the Saints aren’t wild about the class.

• The Niners are now 10–4, without getting a snap from Brandon Aiyuk this year, long after losing Nick Bosa and Fred Warner for the season, and having endured stretches without guys such as Brock Purdy and George Kittle. Kyle Shanahan won’t win Coach of the Year but he should be considered for it.

• I love Kevin Stefanski as a coach, and think he’d be a really good hire for someone if he became available. But that Browns team looked flat as a pancake in Chicago, and I’m getting to the point where I wonder if you can just run all this back in 2026—or if maybe everyone would be better with a fresh start.

• The Giants are currently in pole position for the No. 1 draft pick after being in and losing that spot last year. With Jaxson Dart in place, New York could, theoretically, auction the pick and set itself up with a bounty of picks to help a new coach rework the roster to his liking. So if you’re a Giants fan … root, root, root … for the other team … and if they don’t win, it’s a shame?

• If C.J. Stroud and the Texans’ offense play like they did Sunday, with that defense in place, look out.

• Tough pill for the Packers to swallow Sunday, with the losses of Micah Parsons and Christian Watson coming in the defeat to Denver. Chicago, meanwhile, has had great injury luck, outside of some issues at corner. And those things will certainly be factors in how Saturday night’s NFC North showdown at Soldier Field plays out.

• The Raiders averaged 1.8 yards per play Sunday in Philadelphia, and finished with 75 yards and seven first downs on offense. The Eagles, who’ve struggled of late, can win the NFC East by beating the Commanders on Saturday. For Las Vegas, meanwhile … I have no idea what’s next.

• And, finally: I really liked how J.J. McCarthy played in Dallas. That, of course, doesn’t mean I’m sold he’ll be the Vikings’ quarterback for the next decade. What I do know, though, is if there’s something there, Kevin O’Connell will dig it out. And also that we don’t have to have sweeping takes on young quarterbacks every week. Sometimes, patience is what they need, above all else.

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