The Denver Broncos are in playoff focus from here on out, beginning with Sunday’s Week 18 regular-season finale against the Los Angeles Chargers.
Denver Broncos embracing playoff mode in Week 18 and beyond
While the playoffs don’t start until next week, the Broncos’ approach is very much aimed at treating every game from here on out as if it were a playoff game.
Justin Herbert and a handful of other starters for the Chargers aren’t playing, and to Denver, they don’t care, and they shouldn’t. When looking at the stakes of Week 18 and looking back at the course of the entire regular season, the Broncos took care of business where other teams didn’t.
After the team took the field for the first time since their Christmas Day win against the Kansas City Chiefs, the focus was very much on winning, and it doesn’t matter if it’s Philip Rivers, Dan Fouts, Justin Herbert, or Trey Lance lining up under center, this Broncos team couldn’t care less.
“Our focus is this is a playoff game,” Broncos head coach Sean Payton told us. “I just finished telling the team, we have to focus on… Now we have to focus on, ‘All right, what are the strengths of [Chargers QB] Trey [Lance]?’ So that’s significant. They’re different style players. But our focus is on this game and winning this game.”
Part of that formula is finding a way for the Broncos’ defense to force more takeaways, especially as the postseason approaches. After that, it’s about the Broncos offense continuing to build on the second-half surge they’ve had coming out of the bye week.
Broncos offense making hay against zone defenses
The NFL world can thank Vic Fangio for making the two-high shell the standard for today’s game. While man coverage is still run at a high level for a handful of teams, the Broncos included, zone coverage has made a more prominent return to the game, and it’s thriving because of how defensive coordinators are disguising their coverages, getting to the quarterback with this era’s generation of elite pass rushers, having rangy sideline-to-sideline linebackers, and 6’2 athletic cornerbacks.
Bo Nix and the Broncos offense took advantage of teams’ running man coverage against them at times last season, which is what led to players like Troy Franklin and Marvin Mims catching deep balls, but 2025 has been different.
Denver has seen a lot more zone coverage this season, and the Kansas City Chiefs game was a prime example of it. Opposing defenses’ main objective is to cover and prevent Denver’s vertical routes from beating them, keeping everything in front and funneling things inside with underneath defenders.
When you factor in the disguised looks, how things move post-snap, Bo Nix has done a great job of hitting where he needs to and, at times, hitting tight windows.
milehighsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/1.-Bo-to-Traut.mp4Nix and Payton would love to have more deep shots come open for the offense, but they have to take what defenses give them.
“I would love, you know, sign me up for the one that hits 50-yard bombs all the time that are always open,” Nix joked. “They’re just consistently there. But we’re just trying to find those and trying to find the ones that are open. I think the league has changed a lot recently, and teams have just played a lot more zone. Teams just keep the offense in front of them and make tackles and just make the team go long drives because everybody knows when you get in the red zone, the field condenses, it becomes harder to score. A lot of teams are okay with giving up three points and not giving up a touchdown. But it’s hard to go drive for drive with some of these defenses that they’re built to last, and they’re built with great fronts and good defenders in the back end that just keep things in front of you. They want to make you run the football, and that’s what the zones and the two high shells invite. And so it’s just all about executing whatever the defense gives you. I would wish like crazy, a team would just play us man to man the whole game. It would make my job a lot easier, but that’s just what the defense gives us, and we’re going to continue to just find what they do, and we’re going to do something that counters it. You can’t necessarily pick and choose, unfortunately.”
Against the Chiefs, Denver found a way to counter Steve Spagnuolo’s aggressiveness.
“For us on offense, we just have to have a lot of ways to beat a defense, and some of that, sometimes that’s just taking the 15-play drive and going down and scoring,” Nix said. “Sometimes that’s just as tough on a defense because you did it the hard way. But every once in a while, explosives are obviously good too. But just overall excited where we are as an offense. I feel like the last several weeks we’ve done quick drives, we’ve done long drives, it’s just whatever we got to do to get the ball in the end zone.”
The Broncos are aiming to capitalize even more as the postseason approaches.
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