Game overview:
A really nice, memorable, emerging season for Denver...all thrown away, to some degree, by this total embarrassment in the playoffs.
I didn’t expect the Broncos to win this game, but at least I thought they’d put up a fight. Instead, they took a quick 7-0 lead and then all the reminders of how suspect Sean Payton is as a ‘big game’ head coach (another Mike Tomlin type coach...good regular seasons, got an early Super Bowl win in their careers and then a LONG history of flops in the playoffs since), and his questionable staff choices all came rushing back to the forefront of my mind after this abysmal game.
This game was another Sean Payton special...inexplicable offensive player rotations and features, mixed with the once white-hot, but dying off late season defense facing the unbeatable-at-home-in-the-winter Bills = 31 unanswered points from Buffalo and an easy win.
Since no one expected anything from Denver this year, and didn’t believe in Bo Nix upfront...this season seems like a success, and it was...but they ended the season very flat, despite Nix getting better and better as the season went on. Denver 2024 pretty much beat bad teams on the schedule and lost to all the good teams (except beating TB early in the season). A (5-5) finish in their last 10 games...with wins over Carson Wentz Week 18/KC, the Kirk Cousins collapse, and scuffled by the Raiders and Browns, and beat the dying Anthony Richardson Colts. Lost to the Ravens, the real Chiefs (but should’ve won), LAC (in a critical spot), and to CIN (in a critical spot)...and then got crushed in the playoffs. I see reason for hope ahead for Denver, but also things that worry me...because I’m skeptical on what Sean Payton might do from here.
...but as you look over the league, 25+ teams have bad/suspect coaching, so Payton isn’t ‘the worst’, just like Mike Tomlin is not ‘the worst’...but are you ever going to get to the Promised Land or build a Dynasty with these coaches? History says, you will not. Sean Payton couldn’t do it with a decade+ long run with Drew Brees after their one Super Bowl...but at least he has some hope with Bo Nix.
Buffalo has built a kinda sorta near-Dynasty...the old Utah Jazz level good team that always lost the Conference finals to the L.A. Lakers (aka the Chiefs) back in the day. The Bills got a layup game here. A crucial statement game for both teams/both head coaches looms next week with Baltimore coming to Buffalo.
Player Scouting Notes from the game:
*Note any fractional numbers in parentheses (4/2) or (2/3), etc., are a 'split' stat on our definition of a 'quality start' (or not) marker on a player -- using 14 PPR points in a game for RB-WR-TE and 21 (6pts TD pass) for a QB ...point levels that are good/productive/well above average starts for a Fantasy week. Trying to identify trends, consistency (or not) in players we might not normally realize.
A (3/2), for example, means: 3 times the player hit at/above the QUALITY mark, and 2 times they did not (this current season).
-- I will likely be salty about the Marvin Mims (2-12-0/4, 2-1-0) output here for the entire offseason, due to the fact that I (and many of you) got squashed on every single Prop bet I made on him here this game. Yes, I’m personally affected by it...but it runs deeper than that.
1) It is inexplicable to me that an offense that is so devoid of playmakers, outside of Mims...who has been off-the-charts the past two games (before this game), could not have any real plan to get Mims the ball as much as possible given the importance of this game, and the obvious lack of other options.
But I’ve seen this with Sean Payton all season, all 2nd-half of the season, all during the rise of Mims...it’s almost been by accident, it’s almost in spite of Sean Payton NOT because of Sean Payton.
Mims’ huge game vs. CIN in Week 17...Mims barely had any touches in the 1st-half...then he scores a fabulous long TD...THEN the coaching staff thinks to themselves ‘we should play him more snaps’ and he goes on to have his best game of the season, most all of it coming in the later 2nd-half. The following week, two more TDs in the 1st-half in the must-win/blowout of KC. After those two events, I’m thinking -- Mims is gonna be the feature now, he’s gonna be the plan in the playoffs to have any shot vs. Buffalo.
Nope.
Troy freaking Franklin (2-54-1/3) is the plan! A guy who has failed Denver 3-5x more times than he’s done anything positive -- he’s in the game, early, as much/more than Mims, he’s seeing the ball on purpose. What a plan...THEY’LL NEVER SEEING IT COMING!
Later in the game, as it was slipping away, Denver needed to score fast/bad...I saw Sutton-Vele-Franklin a bunch as the WRs in the game with Mims watching from the sidelines. It’s absolutely incredible/incredulous.
2) It makes me worried for Mims in the future now. I thought this playoff game would be the ‘statement’ game where Denver bought into Mims as ‘their Tyreek’. But it was not. I have to dial back my feelings/valuations on how highly/strongly I want to Dynasty-Future value Mims.
I really thought this game would be the Mims clincher...the launch point of him being ‘the guy’. Now, we’re back to ‘who knows what Sean Payton ever thinks’?
3) It’s OK that I got robbed of all the Prop bets on Mims here. I hate it, I hate losing any bet no matter how small...but I can’t complain because it’s been a nice, profitable ride with Mims overall this season.
-- I do have to give Sean Payton credit...he is a helluva QB coach. What he did with Drew Brees over the years and now cloning Brees with Bo Nix (13-22 for 144 yards, 1 TD/0 INT, 4-43-0). Sean Payton’s Broncos will always be good from here on in because Nix is already one of the top 15 QB talents in the NFL.
And I don’t think Nix would be thought of as such, right now, if he had gone to the Giants or Titans or Raiders, etc.
A top 15 QB in the NFL...a QB1 for FF.
-- Speaking of wasted assets, Curtis Samuel (3-68-1/3) led the Bills in receiving, looking like his talented self. The Bills spent like 9 billion dollars on him in free agency, then sat him on the bench most of the season.
I’m not going to use this as a platform to rail about Curtis Samuel’s usage. I’ve come to terms with ‘this is what it is’ with Samuel for his career. My real thought here is...this is another reminder that you don’t want ANYTHING to do with the Bills receiving options for FF ahead in the Josh Allen era...as I’ve been pointing out for weeks.
Buffalo has figured out what KC has...having a stud receiver doesn’t matter any more than just having 4-5-6 solid options to work with a great QB...and then that QB doesn’t just hone in on one specific target all the time, he spreads it around. Allen has adopted this plan and it’s so smart for the NFL (for payroll/salary cap, for team mgt.) but it is death for FF.
Shakir-Kincaid-Coleman-Amari...all useless for FF in Buffalo. That’s the way I’m charting the course on their 2025+ projections.
-- That goes for Ty Johnson (9-44-0, 2-26-1/2) as well, who Josh Allen repeatedly said is the best 3rd-down back in the league last week. Somewhere in Florida, Rachaad White is standing by a roadside with a single team running down his cheek...but anyway...speaking of guys who teams don’t use...
If Ty Johnson is so great on 3rd-downs, why did he have between 0-1 catches in a game in 11 of his last 14 games prior?
It’s nice for Allen to say, but let’s not go overboard here, it's not ‘a thing’ for FF...right now/yet.
-- For the 4th time in their last 5 games (ignoring Week 18), the Broncos defense gave up 30+ points in a game. I don’t know what happened to this formerly dominant defense, but my guess is -- this is just a reminder of the most important thing with FF DSTs...and that’s ‘schedule’/’opponent’. Winston-Herbert-Burrow-Allen blew them up. Wentz-Richardson-Minshew-Cousins...they squashed the past 10 game stretch.
I think this Denver D collapse at the end is gonna lead to Vance Joseph taking another opportunity and then Dennis Allen being shoehorned in here, making the Broncos worse for the future as Payton further assembles his awful coordinators from his New Orleans stint.
Joseph and Payton were jawboning at each other as this game got away. I’m purely guessing that Joseph will want to leave, knowing Payton really wants Dennis Allen to be his D-C. Some team will get a very good defensive coordinator in Vance J. -- I bet it’s the Falcons, and that would be a coup for them.
Snap Counts of Interest:
52 = Mack Hollins
46 = Coleman
46 = Knox
40 = Shakir
30 = C Samuel
29 = Kincaid
27 = Amari
34 = Cook
34 = Ty J
41 = Sutton
29 = Mims
22 = Vele
17 = Franklin
09 = Lil’Jordan
