A regular season of ugly aesthetics and scintillating comebacks is complete in Denver, with the Broncos streaking into the playoffs and able to now “see the light,” as head coach Sean Payton said postgame Sunday.
Much was left to be desired in a 19-3 win over the Chargers in Week 18. Much was also left to be adored.
Here is The Denver Post’s final regular-season stock report.
Stock up
Jaleel McLaughlin: The Broncos should be feeding this man the ball. Now. Expeditiously. After McLaughlin’s role waned for a couple of weeks in December, he has slowly entered more of a two-back system with rookie RJ Harvey and produced nearly every single time he’s gotten the ball. Since Week 16, he has averaged 7.1 yards per touch. Simply put, he’s been one of Denver’s most efficient players offensively.
Still, he’s averaged under 25% of the Broncos’ offensive snaps in that time. Harvey has been excellent in situational work, but had a heck of a rough game Sunday, with just 28 rushing yards on 15 carries and a bad drop in the screen game. McLaughlin is more productive on a per-touch basis with the ball in his hands, and is simply seeing holes up front better than Harvey across the last month.
Rest: Ah, yes. The most important outcome of Sunday’s win. Let’s count a few of the bruises and bumps and dings across this Broncos roster, why don’t we:
Left tackle Garett Bolles missed the end of the first half with an ankle injury Safety P.J. Locke (filling in for starting safety Brandon Jones, who’s on injured reserve) missed the entire second half with a leg injury Outside linebacker Nik Bonitto is wearing a massive knee brace that makes him look part cyborg Tight end Nate Adkins is wearing a massive knee brace that makes him look part cyborg Defensive lineman John Franklin-Myers missed Sunday’s game with a hip injuryThat’s six key pieces dinged up, and all without mentioning starting inside linebacker Dre Greenlaw (out with a hamstring injury) or running back J.K. Dobbins (who’s slowly building momentum to a potential late-playoffs return).
Denver now has the benefit of an entire week off before a week of preparation against whoever they’ll play in the AFC divisional round, which could go a long way toward some cohesion on a dinged-up offensive front and a dinged-up defense.
Justin Strnad’s wallet: Strnad has been trapped in the ultimate limbo in 2025 as the Broncos’ erstwhile No. 3 linebacker, a designation that’s been a heck of a lot more important than it sounds.
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He was the Broncos’ starting will linebacker when Dre Greenlaw missed the first bit of the season to injury. Then came off the bench when Greenlaw returned in Week 7. Then started again in Week 8 when Greenlaw got suspended. Then came off the bench again for a couple of games. Then started in Week 11 when Alex Singleton had his cancer scare. Then came off the bench again.
He was back starting in Week 18 with Greenlaw hurt, and capped off a banner year with seven tackles, a pass-breakup and a monster sack against the Chargers.
Strnad will be a free agent in March, and has more than proven he’s worthy of a starting job somewhere: 57 tackles, 4.5 sacks, eight QB hits in eight starts in 2025. Time will tell if it’ll be in Denver.
Fortnite: Broncos outside linebacker Nik Bonitto won the Denver-media-voted “Good Guy Award” for his cooperation with the media this season, and should probably win the “Tweeter of the Year” award, too, if one existed.
“1 seed and Fortnite tonight,” Bonitto posted on Sunday night, with a whole bunch of sunglasses and fire emojis.
The video game has expanded to realms unimaginable since the days of Tomato Town. Perhaps the video game developers should give Bonitto — an avid “Fortnite” player — his own custom skin.
All in all, the outside linebacker had his best game since Week 14 against the Raiders, racking up eight pressures and 1.5 sacks to finish with a career-best 14 sacks in 2025. Denver needs that guy to show up in two weeks.
Nik Bonitto, phew. pic.twitter.com/6UDiFmhcz4
— Luca Evans (@bylucaevans) January 5, 2026
Stock down
Aggressive Sean Payton and aggressive Bo Nix: The Broncos have slow-played their opponents for the last two weeks, in two utterly anticlimactic games against the Chiefs and Chargers’ B and C teams. Sunday was particularly excruciating football to watch: Nix’s average throw traveled just 1.2 yards downfield, the second-lowest mark for any quarterback in any game this season, according to Next Gen Stats.
More than half of Nix’s attempts, too, came at or behind the line of scrimmage. This seemed an obviously conservative approach to simply get to the bye week after Denver went up 10-0 early. Still, the operation wasn’t great: Nix yelled “Wake up!” at his sideline for a reason, and he missed badly on several throws. Suddenly upshifting in January after being in such a low gear is a bit of a dangerous proposition.
Pass protection: Denver has a tiny but important problem within a generally dominant pass-blocking front: Nix rarely trusts his current running-back corps to hang in and block their assignment capably against the rush. This came up multiple times Sunday with Harvey and McLaughlin against a Chargers front that had Nix running all afternoon, as the second-year quarterback consistently looks to escape the pocket away from wherever his running backs are blocking.
RB3 Tyler Badie has been quite good as a pass-protector this season, but the Broncos need to sort this out come the playoffs or risk missing out on open looks from the pocket.
Wideout stats: Broncos WR1 Courtland Sutton had a shot to set a new career high for receiving yards in a season entering Week 18, sitting at 1,012 yards — exactly 100 away from his output in a 2019 Pro Bowl season.
Sutton finished with one catch for five yards on two targets.
Second-year wideout Troy Franklin, meanwhile, didn’t even record a catch and drew just one target. This, again, was a clear result of a hugely conservative game plan. It’s often wholly impossible to predict game-to-game receiver production in Payton’s offense. Then again, that’s probably how he likes it.
Adam Trautman’s wallet: Written in the blue-collar tight end’s two-year, $7.5 million contract is a performance bonus of $125,000 if he hits 25 catches in a season. Trautman entered Week 18 with 20 catches. This was a long shot, as Trautman’s single-game career-high for receptions is five.
“I said it to him, I love him,” Payton cracked, “but that’s what he averages a year.”
Unfortunately, he didn’t record a catch, and a nice chunk of change floated away into the void where contract guarantees go to die. On the bright side, Trautman ended up with a 57% snap share on the season and will likely have a job in the NFL as long as Payton is coaching.
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