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Buffalo Plus: A Buffalo Bills podcast
What they're saying about BILLS vs BRONCOS in DENVER with Henry Chisholm
00:35:19
Bills vs Broncos preview with DNVR reporter Henry Chisholm and Mike Catalana
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- [00:00]
A
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- [00:15]
B
By the way, I don't know if you've heard this at all, but the Broncos could have drafted Josh Allen. Do you hear that?
- [00:21]
A
Oh, boy. Yeah, no, I've heard that. No, it used to be maybe once a week you have somebody in the Twitter reply saying, oh, they could have just had Josh Allen. It's more like once a month now, which is nice development. People are starting to let that one go.
- [00:44]
B
Hey, everybody, welcome Back to the Buffalo Plus YouTube channel, presented by Connors and Ferris. Please make sure to like, comment and subscribe. As always, we are psyched up. It is playoff time and we have a special guest who is going to get you ready for the team coming into Orchard Park Sunday, the Denver Broncos. We welcome in Henry Chisholm. He works at dnvr, part of the All City Sports Network in Denver. Henry, welcome to Buffalo plus.
- [01:11]
A
Oh, thanks for having me. This is a, this is a fun week. It's a lot more to talk, well, maybe not more to talk about than usual, but at least we're not talking about a coaching change or who the quarterback's going to be because the Broncos are finally in the playoffs after nine years.
- [01:23]
B
Yeah, it's something we talked beforehand and I said, well, we had a 17 year drought here, but nine years is just awful. Like you know it, because you just want to see a team make the postseason. And the Broncos had made some moves. You know, they went out and got rust. They do all these things and it's not working. And then all of a sudden you go draft this kid and he walks in, starts all the games, get you in the playoffs. Tell me all we need to know about Bo Nix coming into Buffalo Sunday.
- [01:53]
A
Oh, Nix is a gamer. I think that that's probably the biggest thing I missed in the scouting report because it's easy to look at what he did at Oregon and say, you know, there's a lot of checkdowns. You have more speed on your team than any team you're going to play all year. So you speed those guys, let them work. And of course you had the, you know, the all time best completion percentage for a college football player. What I didn't realize is that he is, he, he's gritty, he's tough, he fires his teammates up. He fits the mold that you want for a quarterback, which hasn't always been the case here. You know, whether it's Russell Wilson or Paxton lynch, those personalities were always just a little bit interesting. I think that's the big thing with Bo that doesn't get talked about enough, is that he just wants to win. He's going to find a way to win. And over the second half of the season in particular, he's just grown leaps and bounds. And I, I think it's that attitude that's carrying him.
- [02:46]
B
When I watch him, I, I see the way he moves. He, he's got his head up, you know, a lot of young players, and I know he's a little older for a rookie, but he's still a rookie. This is his first year. And I heard Sean Payton talk about him being tough to sack. Like he avoids them. He knows how to do that. I think that a little bit has to be in you to, to be able to do that, but you also have to think the game well. And he seems to have that where they're chasing him down and he's not just running it or throwing away, he's trying to make a play.
- [03:18]
A
Yep. And I think Sean Payton coaches him well. I think that he, he lets Bo know where he can get this ball out quickly, you know, and I think that Sean deserves a lot of credit for that because he knows where the, the hot rods are, all those sorts of things. He hits those checkdowns maybe a little bit too often, can come off his first read a little bit too quickly. Occasionally there'll be somebody who winds up open deep and the ball's already in the running backs hands. But there are worse things in the world. You know, if it was the other way around, it'd be more frustrating. But, But Bo has very good senses in the pocket. He has the athleticism to take advantage of any gap that opens up. If you ask, if you ask Sean, he'd say that's been the biggest surprise, is that Bo is as athletic as he is. I think it surprised all of us in Denver. You know, there's, there's clips of him at Oregon running around. You can see he has some speed, but nobody expected this. And that's kind of been the X factor this year, is that he's escaping like you said, he's keeping his eyes downfield. He loves to throw those pump fakes even when he's five yards downfield. Because you know what, there's a 25 chance that the defender is just going to stop running anyway, so you might as well give it a run. It doesn't hurt you at all. So they're just some of those little tricks that he's picked up on, and it's been really fun to watch him grow.
- [04:33]
B
When I watch him, and I'll be honest, I mean, we. I've watched him. I've watched him in a series of games, but not obviously like you do. He reminds me of Baker a little bit. Am I off with that? I just. I see him with the size of toughness, the way he moves around, the way he can run and he can make plays. Is that a fair comparison? Baker, Mayfield?
- [04:51]
A
I think it might be. I heard somebody made that one recently, too, and it was the first time I thought of it, and I see it. I think that what you hope for is that BO is just a little bit maybe more clinical than Baker. You keep some of the upside that Baker has off script. And again, very fiery football player. Maybe not to Baker's level, because nobody is. But along those lines, for sure, the key is just making sure that the guy's open. You get him the ball, you don't. No need to run early, no need to dump it down early. Whereas Baker maybe has the opposite problem where it just. I'm gonna. I'm gonna key in on this guy, and even if he isn't open, I might rip it.
- [05:29]
B
Yeah. It's funny because you're going up against Josh Allen this week, and Josh, he didn't like the checkdowns, and he would try to make a play, but by the way, he loves that past the line of scrimmage pump fake that still works no matter how many times he does it. By the way, I don't know if you've heard this at all, but the Broncos could have drafted Josh Allen. Do you hear that? Oh, boy.
- [05:52]
A
Yeah, no, I've heard that. No, it used to be maybe once a week, you'd have somebody in the Twitter reply saying, oh, they could have just had Josh Allen. It's more like once a month now, which is, yeah, nice development. People are starting to let that one go.
- [06:06]
B
Hey, by the way, the Bills traded the pick that could have been Patrick Mahomes. So they've heard about that enough. And then the next year, you get Josh Allen. If you get your guy, then you've got your guy. And. And Denver certainly has a reason to think, what's his weakness? I mean, when you talk about maybe the check down too quick or, you know, I mean, he's a rookie. Like, usually the Weakness is he will throw into double coverage. He will take that sack when you need to make a play. He doesn't think the game. What, what is his weakness?
- [06:40]
A
Well, occasionally you do see just the misread coverages. It's rare. I think that they've probably come in bunches. I think the first month of the season you saw more of it. I'm not too worried about him just throwing interceptions at this point. The biggest weakness is probably not being able to hit throws downfield. And he hit him occasionally. And he found Marvin Mims for a deep touchdown. Two deep touchdowns, really, in that Bengals game a couple weeks ago, hit Cortland Sutton on a go ball this week. So he hits some of them, but the batting average is just a little bit too low. And again, he's a little bit conservative sometimes. And when you see him miss those deep shots, a lot of the time they're overthrows. You know, you just don't want to put the ball in harm's way in the modern NFL. You want those to be under throws. You know, those are. Those are the ones that get called for pass interference. You have Courtland Sutton out there who's 6 foot 4 and can jump over anybody. Let him go make a play. I think that would be the biggest weakness right now, is that if, if I were the Bills, I'd be willing to say, yeah, you can have these one on ones on the boundary. We dare you to hit this 50 yards out.
- [07:46]
B
Yeah. Well, let's start with Sutton. 135 targets, 81 catches, a thousand yards, eight touchdowns with a rookie quarterback, I mean, that's something, you know, in the off season because of the Russell Wilson deal, it seemed like a lot was on the table or looking that way, depending on what this team would do. What has Sutton been like? Because, you know, you'd heard his name, at least we did. You know, that maybe he was on the block because they're looking to make moves and trying to rebuild and all those kind of things. And the way he's played this year, he's become a mainstay again for them, right?
- [08:20]
A
Oh, absolutely. I think he is the one piece of the offense that the Broncos can trust in terms of playmakers. Everybody else kind of comes and goes, but Cortland Sutton will always be right there. I haven't double checked this stat in the past three weeks or so, but I believe Cortland Sutton and Justin Jefferson were the only two receivers in the NFL this year who had seven consecutive games with 60 or more receiving yards. And that's that's what Cortland Sutton did in the middle of the season just to kind of steady the ship for the Broncos. And he's just grown as a player. He's a true X receiver. If you want, you can. First of all, you can throw the deep ball. And yeah, he had a couple nice catches in Buffalo last year, Monday Night Football. He'll, he'll make those 50, 50 ball plays for you. He'll also get open underneath, or maybe not even open, but in good enough position that he can box out and make a catch on a slant or make a catch on a curl. And that's been nice for Bo to have kind of a true number one receiver again. It's not like. It's not like he is Justin Jefferson, who you just go to over and over and over again. And even if the defense knows it's coming, you can't stop. Still has given him kind of a starting point on offense, a first read, somebody who he can trust. And the one play that they've hit over and over again is the, the deep dig, you know, 12, 15 yards downfield. Cortland Sutton breaks, comes across the middle of the field. And they have found a pretty special chemistry on that route in particular.
- [09:47]
B
Tell me about Mims, because I thought like the first month of the year, I saw a couple of games and it felt like he was at least again from the outside, that he was on the outside, that they were like, he's not going to have the role he's had. And all of a sudden he has become a much more prominent player. Anybody who watched, you know, the couple of weeks, especially this past week, seeing what he's done, what is Mims done for them?
- [10:14]
A
He has grown so much. I think with him, he's just a young player. You go back so before he was even at Oklahoma, he was. He set the national record for most receiving yards in a season for a wide receiver. All time in high school football. And there's a lot of people who have played high school football. So to do that down at the highest level in Texas, it made him this big time recruit because of his speed and because of his hands and just the physicality that he can play with at the catch point goes to Oklahoma, I believe led them in receiving three straight years. Goes the Broncos, the second round pick. But because everything had kind of gone so well as this big time recruit, he made it to the NFL at 21. He's still only 22 years old. I think that there's just a learning curve There he. He had all these traits that had played up, but again, that Oklahoma offense, Lincoln Riley offense, that's not a normal route tree. And so you have to kind of learn. You get the screens, you get the go balls, and he was great at those. But I'd still say still to this day, the route tree isn't really there. But what the Broncos have done is found ways to get the ball in his hands. He was the Pro bowl returner for the AFC last year, Pro bowl returner again this year in his second year. Getting him the ball on screens. I think everything kind of became unlocked about halfway through the season, maybe a little bit before the halfway point when they started playing him at running back. And it's a lot of screens from there, a couple wide zone runs, tosses just to kind of keep the defense honest, but kind of create those mismatches, which is what Sean Payton's all about. You know, rotate as many different personnel groups onto the field as possible, see how the defense responds, personnel wise, scheme wise, and then, you know, from then, you. You pick your matchups that you like the rest of the game and ride with it. So I think Sean did a really good job of finding a way to get Marvin involved. And. And then as soon as he's able to get on the field and contribute, that's when you know, you. You run eight go go routes in a single game. One of those. You're going to come open when you're that fast, you know, so. So he was able to find a way onto the field so that then he could kind of become more productive. And now four touchdowns in two weeks. It seems like he's kind of being unlocked at the right time.
- [12:23]
B
Run defense has been a problem for the Bills. It. It just has been. How would you describe the Broncos run run game?
- [12:32]
A
Sporadic at best. Maybe they don't have a running back. That's the problem. And it seems like in the NFL right now, everybody has a running back that's supposed to be the easiest thing to find, is a decent running back. But the Broncos can't find anybody to consistently give carries to. It's supposed to be Javante Williams, now two years removed from the ACL injury. He just isn't himself. He can't break tackles. There's not much juice there. They. A couple weeks ago, they kind of shifted to Jalil McLaughlin, who's fast. You get him going, the stretch runs, the cutbacks, he can take advantage of gaps and get downfield. They tried just force feeding him the ball this week, and Even against that Chiefs defense, Chiefs backup defense. I think he finished with 2.2 yards per carry. Audric estimate the fifth round rookie out of Notre Dame's big. He'll go straight ahead, but he can't go side to side. So I think that the blocking, the blocking has been fine and maybe even pretty good at times. The thing is you just don't have anybody to take advantage. I think if the Broncos had been the team to go and pay Saquon Barkley this off season, we talk about this team very differently, but instead it's this rushing attack that maybe will give you a quarter at points, has been able to give you a half. They can't give you a whole game, though. And that's why Bo has been kind of forced to put the entire offense on his back. So, you know, from a Broncos perspective, they'd be excited to see this Buffalo defense, but I don't think there are any delusions saying this is going to be a 200 yard game.
- [14:00]
B
Yeah, I mean, look, Sean McDermott's and he's not alone in this. Defensively, you try to make a team one dimensional. I think that plays a little bit into the Bill's hands this week when the Broncos don't have a run game they can really depend on and they know they have weapons and they know Knicks has played well, but I think they would. They're one of those teams that would prefer that you threw the ball just because. I think. Because it's the lesser of two evils with the way they've played. I want to talk about Sean Payton. I mean, the guy's won a lot of games, he's been around, he can be cranky and you've probably seen him that way. He seems to be enjoying himself this year, and that's on the Sean Payton scale. Does he seem different to you guys with the. Not just the success, but maybe with the young quarterback and the way he's played?
- [14:49]
A
I think so. I think he seems a little bit different. A little. He's still himself. I think that. Exactly. Even last year, I don't know that Sean gets as much credit as he should for the positive aspects of his personality. But I think that's because most of those are, you know, at practice, on the field or behind closed doors or talking to guys in his office. Whereas whenever the public can see him, whenever we can see him, it's at the podium where he's. He's pretty prickly. But you have some players and they love him. You know, he has a Jordan Deal. And he loves giving Jordans to his team. Like, there's a whole bunch of those little things that earn him goodwill with the team. I think coaching wise, he. He's a program builder. I think that that can kind of get lost because you haven't seen it over and over and over again like some of those guys who get that label are able to show. With Sean, you know, he goes to New Orleans and creates something that had never really existed for the Saints and, yeah, maintains that and there's the ebbs and flows or whatever. But what he's done coming here, he made this team tougher. He made them work hard in training camp, very physical training camps make them play in the preseason. Kind of just instilled real football values into this team. And they've responded to that. And I think that they've embraced kind of the us against the world mentality all season. You know, they're over. Under for the win total was at five and a half. Nobody expected this from them even. Even me. So I think. I think Sean has done a really good job. His work with BO is obvious, but it. I am. I'm curious to see where it goes from here because the. Hopefully this is kind of the end of the us against the world era and more of, okay, you've got a quarterback, you've got some pieces now. Let's build and let's go.
- [16:46]
B
You know, it's funny, I think about guys like Sean Payton, Mike Tomlinson and John Harbaugh, who all won Super Bowls relatively early and have maintained now, those guys have stayed in the same place, tons of games. Not tremendous playoff success since then. I mean, Harbaugh made it to a championship game last year and then ended up losing. But it's fine. I mean, to me, it's like when a guy has won a Super bowl, they tend to get more rope, right? They tend to get more time. And you look back at Peyton's career, it's funny, I look at. It's similar. His playoff history post championship is similar to Sean McDermott's. It's right around 500 good wins made it to a championship game, like all those things and not come through. But what Sean McDermott doesn't have is that super bowl championship, which is something to get done. Now Sean's on the defensive side, obviously Sean Payton on the offensive side. You've got Vance Joseph coaching the defense and his relationship in Denver. Well, for people that don't remember or don't know, tell them a little bit about Vance Joseph.
- [17:55]
A
Well, he. He took over in 2016. So he was the first coach after the Super bowl year. 20, 2017 Gary Kubiak did coach that one year after didn't go well. I think around 500 the first year, five wins the second year. And that was it for Vance Joseph. Probably best remember his tenure for Sergio Dip on the ESPN broadcast. Vance Joseph is having the time of his life.
- [18:21]
B
Yeah.
- [18:22]
A
And that ended pretty quickly. And again this is. The Broncos have never really had a stretch like this where they've been this bad. Certainly not nine years of missing the playoffs that that hadn't happened since they first made the playoffs in 1977. They had like a five year stretch in the early 2000s where they missed. Other than that, like they're in the playoffs. That's what they do. They never had back to back losing seasons since 1973 up until seven in a row now. And Vance Joseph was the start of that. And so he's kind of seen as the beginning of when things went wrong in Denver. But now he's back and he's doing a great job, which has been a lot of fun. He said that it would be like a week or two after he hired that he was going to hear it from the fans and the fans weren't going to like him. But then people would move on. He was kind of right. It doesn't really come up that much anymore. It helps when you know it's the third ranked scoring defense. You led the NFL in sacks, most sacks ever for a Broncos team. They've had some teams that are capable of getting some sacks. You think back to the super bowl year, Super Bowl 50 with DeMarcus Ware and Von Miller. He's, he's worked some magic here and I think, I think he might be a loved figure in Denver, Colorado, which nobody could have predicted ten years ago. Yeah, seven years ago.
- [19:39]
B
It's. I was trying to think like I covered this league a long time and I'm sure there are people but sometimes it was on an interim basis. It's a rare thing, isn't it, that a guy was head coach, got fired and comes back as a coordinator with the same franchise. It seems like something the Raiders would have done back in the day, but I'm trying to think of, of who it would be. Somebody's probably going to comment here and going to remind me of somebody who, who came back and, and ended up doing that. But it is a Broncos. They.
- [20:09]
A
Oh Wade, our guy Shanahan and he was the head coach for two years, came back and ran that Super Bowl 50 defense.
- [20:17]
B
I loved Wade when he was with the Bills and he came at the end of the Marv Levy era, got that team the playoffs and then lost the, you know, Music City Miracle, you know, home run throwback play. And then eventually, you know, with interference from ownership. And he had Flutie and Johnson, whatever it is. But. But he was. Wade is a good dude and was. He's good on Twitter too. Is. Which is funny. But he was one of those guys. You're right. Yes. Wade Phillips doing it that way. All right, tell me about this defense. Tell me about Nick Bonito with the. The year he's having. Was anybody expecting this?
- [20:58]
A
No, nobody was expecting this. He was a second round pick out of Oklahoma. Didn't do much his rookie year, as he would say. He was a little bit immature coming into the league last year, kind of started to find a little bit of footing, especially later in the year, and then this year had the opportunity and ran with it. Freaky speed, freaky burst.
- [21:21]
B
We.
- [21:21]
A
We don't compare people to Von Miller around here because that's disrespectful and also not easy to live up to. But it is. It's that kind of burst off the line where it's like, whoa, it.
- [21:31]
B
Yeah.
- [21:32]
A
How did he just do that? He's by the tackle already. And, you know, we started to see it a little bit last year. The big thing now is that he has had some counters and he put on probably 20 pounds this off season. So now, you know, he can go speed to power, he can hold up against the run, so he's able to stay on the field more. More opportunities. But 14 sacks, nobody would have seen that coming. It's been a special season. It's just fun to see somebody as talented as Nick is just kind of put all the pieces together and it. You also have to give credit to Jonathan Cooper on the other edge, who, yeah, is another very good edge rusher. You have Zach Allen, John Franklin Myers, D.J. jones in the middle. Everybody's getting one on ones because you can't just double one of these guys. You're leaving somebody else. Not double. It's why they. They've been able to just overpower offensive lines with that talent up front and, you know, 63 sacks, most in the NFL, most ever in a Bronco season. It's. It's a special pass rush.
- [22:26]
B
Yeah. Zach Allen seems to be one of those guys that just gets bypassed. I don't know why. I know he's a heck of a player.
- [22:35]
A
He is. And he's A great guy, too, but he's just. He's a little bit laid back. He's never gonna go out and demand respect. He's very tight with J.J. watt. They play together in Arizona now, are very, very good friends. And you see some of that in his play style, and not just because he's like a big number 99 white guy with a big arm brace, but because he's just so powerful. It's so difficult to stop him on the inside. And there's all sorts of different stats that back it up, whether it's the quarterback hits. I believe he's one of three, four players. J.J. watt, Aaron Donald, you know, the list play on the interior with, I think it's 40 quarterback hits since 2000. Just struggled to convert some of those into sacks. And he just hit this dry spell for about a month during the Pro bowl voting, which is why he probably got snubbed. He's sitting on five sacks for so long, career high. And just tied it and Couldn't surpass it. Could surpass it. Couldn't surpass it. Up until the Bengals game against Joe Burrow, he had three and a half sacks. He was in on five sacks. Just kind of blew those numbers out of the water and kind of. He seemed to kind of break through that being a step late over and over and over again.
- [23:47]
B
Yeah, but that as a group, that's. That's tremendous. Now a plus for the Bills has been their offensive line play. I think it's 14 sacks on Josh Allen and his ability. You know, for a while he would run, sometimes run into sacks, or he would hold the ball or he would do whatever, and it's really been tough to get him to the ground. I. I think without question, it's. It's. You know, everybody talks about this with Josh. It's like, try to keep him in the pocket, try to do that. You know, it. The thing about him now is, and you see it and you've heard it, you know, he. He's always looking to make a play and sometimes even will. It's almost comical where he'll make a throw when he's, you know, know, going out of bounds or when he's right at the line of scrimmage or he's just. And it used to be just chucking them up, and now it is. He's finding the open guy and he's doing it that way. But I would think that getting behind, getting teams behind the sticks has been a huge thing for this defense. When you get 60 plus sacks, I mean, you are, you know, you know, the numbers or the specific numbers. Every time, every time a team's got a drive where their sack involved, usually it does not go well. It just hurts teams that much. Has that really been the M.O. of this defense? And obviously with the guy you have in the defensive backfield, but in terms of just, just, you know, great coverage but then ended up getting the quarterback on the ground.
- [25:10]
A
Yeah, I mean, it all works together. And I've been working on the story about the pass rush, but I was talking to Pat Certain about it and just everybody knows that when you're getting a pass rush, it's easier to play defensive back. It just is. But to be able to hear how Pat talks about it and talk about the specific differences that, you know, like, hey, if there's pressure coming off this side, that means the ball is coming to the backside. You have to watch that receiver. And it's probably potentially an in breaking route. You can go up, you can sit on these routes, you can kind of trust a little bit, you know, what sorts of routes the offense will run once they've been affected by pressure and just all these sorts of things. When you have somebody like Pat Certain makes writing a story like that a lot of fun. First of all, because this is the best cornerback alive and he's just going to give me all this information. But that's, it's, it's a Russian cover defense and they've been the best at both. I'm getting teams behind the sticks getting off the field on third downs. It's interesting this week in particular because typically you put Pat Certain on the other team's best receiver.
- [26:12]
B
The Bills have a number one thing.
- [26:15]
A
That's the thing. So do you say like Keon Coleman, like Matt Collins.
- [26:19]
B
That would be hilarious.
- [26:21]
A
I know. Just have Pat has to follow Matt Collins, give him the. Yeah, you know, I guess Amari Cooper. Yeah, I just don't. I'm curious how they run those because you might just say, pat, you're on your half. Riley, you're on your half. We aren't going to worry about matching you up with anybody in particular because you know what? This just looks more vanilla. It makes it difficult to read. We're not telling you it's man versus zone.
- [26:43]
B
Yeah, it is wild with the Bills because, you know, we had Stefan Diggs here put up big numbers when he was there and he was unquestioned number one and now it's not. And yet somehow they're the first team ever with 30 plus offensive and or running and Throwing touchdowns and Allen's most touchdowns he has to a pass catcher is Mack Hollins with five. The guy might very well win MVP with that, which is. Is kind of wild. But it was a few weeks ago we got talking about the maybe playing the Broncos, and we with Dan Fates and Jenna, who we all work together, and we're laughing at going like, who's he covering on the bill?
- [27:23]
A
It's a waste. I don't know what. And so that's. That's one of the things that we've talked about is that what you see is, so they start the season, he's on DK Metcalf, and then he's on George Pickens. And so. So there you started with like a month of pretty obvious Garrett Wilson. Then you get to Mike Evans, and so he locks all those guys down, and then you hit the stretch where there isn't really anybody he has to lock onto. And that's where the turnovers come. It's when he isn't necessarily just like lining up. I've got to stop this guy. It's. I get to have my eyes in the backfield because this Joe Schmo, number three, I can. I can keep half an eye on him. I've got him covered. But I. These Bills receivers were better than I thought. I mean, the numbers speak for themselves. Like, you can't have a quarterback do what Josh Allen did without some of them. But it's fun to see them all kind of find their roles and see what Khalil Shakira started to do underneath and downfield. Keon Coleman, like Josh El just put a dart right up over Corner's head, 40 yards away. It's like that's. He. He's figured out how to use those.
- [28:24]
B
Guys now, no question. And, you know, it's. It's what's made this offense really go this year. So we'll. We'll see how it plays out. In terms of a game plan, if you're the Broncos, you got a rookie quarterback coming into Orchard Park. I mean, it is a tough place to play. The fans are right on top of you. What's the game plan? What is it that the. That the Broncos would come in here and say, if we do this, we can pull off the upset?
- [28:57]
A
It's a tough one. It really is. Defensively, I think, is where you start, because you got to get to Josh Allen. I know he's the best quarterback in the NFL this year going against blitzes, but when you make it to this point in the season, you do what got you here and that's Rush 5 more than anybody else. And they call it blitzes when the Broncos do it because you're sending five guys and that next gen stats will call it a blitz. Really, they just line five guys up on the line of scrimmage, three defensive linemen, two edge rushers and go. I think that you stick with that. You collapse the pocket. You expect to need two guys to get to Allen to bring him down. I think you trust your corners. You can leave a safety deep, but you trust Pat on whoever he's covering. You trust Riley Moss and whoever he's calling Jaquan. You hope somebody gives you a play and then you probably send a spy over the middle too and hope that with that much going on up front you can take away the threat of the run or at least mitigate it a little bit and then trust your coverage, trust your rushers to do what they did all year.
- [29:56]
B
Yeah, offensively. Yeah, I was going to say go ahead.
- [29:59]
A
Yeah, offensively it's trickier because they've had stretches where they've run the ball well and it's when they scheme it upright and they, you know, they use. They let Quinn Miners pull and lead the way for their 240 pounder audric estimate or then they go to the speed side and just let Julia McLaughlin press the edge and then cut back in. I don't know that I trust them to get that rhythm going just because it's been so rare. I think Bo Nix has been really good when you let him go empty. We haven't seen it much recently, but I. There's a real part of me that thinks you go into this game saying we're, we're putting up points here, we're throwing the ball around. We're trusting Bo to do. Do what he did last week, which is pick apart some zone coverages. It's obviously going to be different now that you're not going up against guys who can't make plays against those zone coverages, but you've got a bit of a rhythm and I, I'd be flinging the ball around and if not then it's that power run play action combo which they've been solid with that too.
- [30:59]
B
Yeah, it's. It's fascinating when a team has a young quarterback like this who has not had it seem like the moment's too big. Now this is a big jump up in a moment. Right. That was big last week, but it was like you said, it was home and it was against the Chiefs backups Yeah. But do you have any thought that this moment could be too big for Bonix?
- [31:24]
A
I don't think so. I wouldn't be surprised if you see jitters early on. I think that we saw those. It would be the Chargers game. Bengals game. Bengals game. There we go. Bailed out of a clean pocket out the back, maybe just sailed a couple of balls. But then by the end of the game, of course, he's hitting the deep balls to get him back into it. I wouldn't be surprised if in that first quarter, first couple series, you know, it gets. Probably sailing balls. It's the same stuff probably Sam Darnold did playing the lines on Sunday Night Football, where it just. You get a little too excited. The touch passes aren't really there, but again, Bo. Bo will settle in. This is kind of what he's all about. And I. I don't think I'm worried about that.
- [32:11]
B
Yeah. And that last thing, I want to ask you about some fan base. Now, this is a, you know, franchise that's had a lot of success and then a bad stretch. I'm assuming everybody's back on board. Where's the fan base right now? Getting a chance to see this team play in the playoffs.
- [32:29]
A
They're having a lot of fun. It's. You really can't understate it. I mean, after nine years out of the playoffs, in a place where you always go to the playoffs, it means a lot to be back. I think, especially given the expectations coming into the season, it means a lot to be. To be back. I also, there's a. There's a happy to be here vibe. You know, in the past, when the Broncos make the playoffs, and I guess, you know, the four appearances before this, it was Peyton Manning. Before that, it's Tebow. Before that, I think Jake Plummer might have been the last. Cutler might have gotten to one. But even in those lower years, there's this thought that, like, we're the Denver Broncos, we can go win a Super Bowl. You know, that that thought hasn't really been around much this week. Nobody's really talking Super Bowl. Like, I caught when we. We did our podcast this morning, and I saw it was teased as it's playoff week. It's like, well, that's not. Hopefully it's not playoff. Hopefully it's playoff month, you know, but. But the teasers. Because people are just so happy to have gotten over this hump.
- [33:27]
B
Yeah, I mean, I guess it depends on how the team feels, but usually, you know, hey, if you're in it Go, win. And then you see what happens after that. Right? That's what ends up up happening. But this, I think it's a great matchup. I think it's sort of fascinating to see the two Sean's coaching against each other, offense and defense. This young, you know, up and coming quarterback with some weapons, some great defensive players. And Von Miller gets to play against his old team. And he loves, you know, Von loves everybody. He loves his old team. He loves the quarterbacks. He'll tell us this week he loves Bo Nicks. Even if he doesn't know him. Vaughn loves everybody. So it'll be fun to see. Hey, Henry, let everybody know where they can find you both on social media and online.
- [34:07]
A
Yeah. At Henry Chisholm on Twitter, all that sort of stuff. C H I S H O L M people forget that second H. But then also on YouTube, DNVR sports, we go live every day. We'll be live 10am Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I guess where I did Tuesday, Saturday, Sunday. So come hang out with us there if you're a Broncos fan or if you're a Bills fan who want to learn more. Yeah, yeah.
- [34:33]
B
You guys have a lot of great content because you do, you know, Colorado, you do the Nuggets, you got the Avalanche, the Rockies, everything. Right. You cover it all there. Yeah.
- [34:42]
A
So it's great dot com.
- [34:43]
B
There we go. So that's, that's where people can check out and get everybody ready for the Bills and the Broncos on Sunday. Henry, thanks very much for being with us.
- [34:52]
A
Yeah, thanks for having me on. Should be a fun.
- [34:54]
B
All right, that's going to do it for us. We appreciate all of you being with us. Please make sure to like, comment and subscribe and we will check you out the next time we see you on the Buffalo plus podcast, presented by Connors and Ferris.