Parker Gabriel’s 7 Thoughts after Broncos’ wild OT win vs. Bills, including why Sean Payton trusts Jarrett Stidham ...Middle East

The Broncos will play for a trip to Super Bowl LX.

They will do so after a dramatic, 33-30 overtime win against Buffalo on Saturday at Empower Field.

They will do so without quarterback Bo Nix, who fractured a bone in his right ankle while leading a game-winning drive in overtime.

They will do so on a magic carpet ride of a season and also in the wake of a crushing loss to the heart and soul of the franchise.

Here are 7 Thoughts from Denver’s dramatic AFC divisional victory and an aftermath the likes of which many Broncos players and coaches have never experienced.

1. Jarrett Stidham steps into the spotlight as a smart and savvy veteran. Sean Payton trusts him. As for what it looks like, we’ll all find out together a week from Sunday.

When the Broncos drafted Bo Nix in April 2024, naturally, much of the conversation centered on his pairing with head coach Sean Payton.

From the jump, however, Denver didn’t just have confidence in what Payton could provide as a past Super Bowl winner and with his reputation as one of the game’s foremost offensive minds and quarterback developers.

They also believed quarterbacks coach Davis Webb and No. 2 quarterback Jarrett Stidham formed a collegial, smart cocoon of a quarterback room that would be ideal for Nix.

Webb told The Post before Nix’s rookie year that he, Stidham and then-No. 3 Zach Wilson could help smooth the rookie learning curve by leveraging their own playing successes and failures.

Everybody involved raved about the chemistry and the Broncos hit the mark again this spring by signing Sam Ehlinger after Wilson left for Miami via free agency.

Stidham and Webb, though, join Nix as the core of one of the most unique quarterback rooms in the NFL.

Stidham and Webb have known each other since they were teenagers, Texas high school quarterbacks separated by just two recruiting classes. Stidham ultimately started his career at Baylor before transferring to Auburn, but he considered Texas Tech while Webb was there, backing up Patrick Mahomes.

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Later, Stidham hosted Nix on Nix’s recruiting visit to Auburn.

That togetherness and shared experience will have to show through somehow this week as Stidham prepares for the biggest game of his life, though obviously Nix’s on-field powers cannot be transferred.

What is sure: ‘Stiddy’ is a beloved figure in Denver’s locker room.

He totes a waterproof speaker to and from the shower daily, setting the unofficial locker room playlist based on whatever he’s feeling.

He draws eye rolls and laughs regularly and cat-calls teammates while they speak with reporters or just because he feels like it.

Stidham, though, did not earn a two-year, $12 million deal on the eve of free agency back in March just because he brings good vibes and he, as Payton likes to say, “wears well” in the building.

Asked earlier this month about the obvious chemistry in his quarterback room, Payton shot back quickly.

“They’ve been fantastic. Man, and forget how they’ve been in the room,” he said. “They’re really good players. That’s most important. You can be the greatest guy in the room, but if you can’t play, then you’ve just got to be the greatest guy in someone else’s room.”

The Broncos are going to find out just how well Stidham can play on the biggest stage now when he starts the AFC Championship Game at Empower Field next weekend against either New England or Houston.

This is not a typical recipe for success, but Payton will go immediately to work convincing his team that they’re going to win anyway.

He stood at the podium Saturday night, delivered the news about Nix, said it was basically the equivalent of telling his own team — many didn’t know in the postgame locker room — and then delivered the punch line.

“I said this at the beginning of the season — I feel like I’ve got a No. 2 that is capable of starting for several teams and I know he feels the same way,” Payton said. “Watch out. Just watch.”

Bo Nix didn’t initially fracture his right ankle on the kneel down, according to Sean Payton, but you can see the instability clearly here as he walks to the sideline: pic.twitter.com/IicPn6PCLF

— Parker Gabriel (@ParkerJGabriel) January 18, 2026

Payton has been bullish on Stidham since he made the 2019 fourth-round pick among his very first free agent signings in the spring of 2023.

He gave Stidham two starts at the end of 2023 after benching Russell Wilson, saying he thought Stidham would provide “a spark.”

He said after that year that he didn’t think the Broncos had yet seen Stidham’s best.

After playing only garbage time a year ago as Nix started 17 games, Denver gave Stidham $7 million guaranteed over two years to return as Nix’s backup.

Webb just last month brought up Stidham unprompted in a conversation with The Post about Nix’s Year 2 progress, noting the way the 29-year-old has added some mobility to his game.

“I think Stiddy’s moved more in the last three preseasons than he has in his career before that,” Webb said. In classic fashion, Stidham was walking out of earshot of the conversation but saw Webb talking with a reporter and yelled repeatedly in his direction, “Stop lying!”

Stidham indeed looked mobile in a terrific August run five months ago when he completed 30 of 38 passes for 376 yards and four touchdowns.

This, of course, will be nothing like August. This is a Super Bowl berth on the line.

Philadelphia won a championship in 2017 with Nick Foles playing in relief of the injured Carson Wentz.

Shortly after the game, Denver safety P.J. Locke posted on social media, “Jarrett ‘Nick Foles’ Stidham! Let’s (expletive) Rock Kid!”

The Broncos love Stidham. That much is beyond doubt. Another near certainty: Payton is going to tell everybody he comes across over the next several days that Denver’s going to get the job done with him at the helm.

2. Long before Nix’s injury changed the tenor of Denver’s divisional win over the Bills entirely, the Broncos opened their scoring with one of the most interesting plays of the year.

Reserve tackle Frank Crum aligned from Buffalo’s 7-yard line as one of three tight ends, an eligible receiver on what seemed sure to be a run play. Instead, Crum, the undrafted second-year tackle out of Wyoming, held his block for a beat and then released into the right flat.

Nix rolled right, threw him the ball and then watched the 6-foot-8, 315-pounder rumble into the end zone.

Crum never caught a pass in college or high school, nor anytime before that.

FRANK CRUM BIG MAN TD

BUFvsDEN on CBS/Paramount+Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/8SEiIm527H

— NFL (@NFL) January 17, 2026

“I don’t think I even scored a touchdown in backyard football,” he said after the game. “So that was the first ever in my life.”

Even more remarkable: Payton and the Broncos got the idea for the play from a guy who had been back in the building for all of one week.

That’s John Morton, who until Jan. 6 was Detroit’s offensive coordinator. Morton spent 2023-24 as Payton’s passing game coordinator here, then left to be Dan Campbell’s offensive coordinator in Detroit. Campbell took play-calling away from Morton during the season and fired him afterward.

Then this week, Morton was back on Denver’s practice field, chatting with offensive assistants and watching the unit work.

Turns out, he also had a trick up his sleeve.

It wasn’t while Morton was with Detroit, but the Lions ran a similar play against Buffalo during the 2024 season that ended in a 9-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Jared Goff to tackle Dan Skipper.

Morton brought the play up during the week and Denver installed it, Crum said, in recent days.

“When we saw that, we saw it as a short-yardage play, but we saw it as a short-yardage red-zone play,” Payton said. “Buffalo has a tendency to play more man when you’re in ‘jumbo.’ So a little short motion bumps who’s covering who.

“That’s one of those Rudy plays. Your whole team goes crazy when that happens. He’s very athletic, and sometimes you don’t get the look you want. We got the exact same look Detroit got.”

Multiple players after the game, including right tackle Mike McGlinchey and tight end Adam Trautman, said the Lions play was in the offense’s film cut-ups this week.

Thanks, ‘Johny Mo.’

“Obviously, there’s a lot of familiarity with him and he knows this offense really well,” Trautman said of Morton. “He’s a smart guy. Obviously he got fired, but there’s a reason he got hired in the first place. We’ll take what we can get from anybody, and if it works, we’ll call it.

“It ended up being great.”

3. P.J. Locke only needs to look at the calendar to reminisce about what a journey he’s been on the past year

Next week is the first anniversary of Locke having spinal fusion surgery. Back then, he had a spacer placed between his L4 and L5 vertebrae and then a “cage” built around the spacer with screws and metal.

In the weeks that followed, he wondered if perhaps he made a terrible mistake.

“My family came down this week and we were kind of reminiscing,” Locke said after Denver’s 33-30 overtime win. “This time last year — end of January — I could barely walk. I couldn’t get out the bed. I needed help getting off the couch. If I dropped something, I needed somebody to pick it up for me. It was like, I thought I made the wrong decision. Nobody knew if I would come back.

“I mean, we were all optimistic, but the doctor was like, ‘We need some great things to happen for you to actually come back and play football.’”

Locke is thought to be the first player to return from his exact operation and resume playing in the NFL.

He knew he’d be a backup after Denver signed Talanoa Hufanga this spring and, sure enough, he played just 12 defensive snaps in the Broncos’ first 14 games this year.

That all changed in a major way when Brandon Jones sustained a season-ending pectoral injury that required surgery in Week 15 against Green Bay.

Since jumping back into the starting lineup, Locke has provided his typical steady play.

Saturday, he made his mark in a major way.

Locke ranged from his deep safety spot on to the Denver defense’s left and intercepted a Josh Allen deep ball for Curtis Samuel, racing 30 yards up the visiting sideline after he’d picked it.

It temporarily preserved a 23-17 Broncos lead in the middle of the third quarter.

Locke credited nickel Ja’Quan McMillian, who made a tackle for loss on the previous play to set up second-and-14.

“We were in Cover 2 to the field and quarters to the boundary,” Locke explained. … “When they get in those second-and-long situations, they kept running — when they played the Eagles, they kept running these Cover 8 beaters. Basically, they’d try to get somebody up the seam on the outside of the hash on the opposite numbers. If you watch that game, they kept hitting on it.

“Once I saw — I looked at my half and I looked at my guy and he had an inside release. So I just started kind of squeezing that seam route. I had my eyes on the quarterback, he threw the ball and I just undercut it.”

P.J. Locke gets it right back for the Broncos!

BUFvsDEN on CBS/Paramount+Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/PapwOMVTA2

— NFL (@NFL) January 17, 2026

What a difference a year makes.

“When I had that surgery, I didn’t know,” he said. “It was up in the air. I don’t think any of this happens by mistake, man. It’s all the man above.”

4. Garett Bolles and Vance Joseph started their Broncos journeys together almost a decade ago. Now they’re key cogs in a team that will try to punch a Super Bowl ticket.

Vance Joseph’s first draft pick as a head coach was No. 20 in the 2017 draft. He and the Broncos took Garett Bolles, an old-for-his-class tackle with a harrowing childhood story and trademark athleticism.

The first two seasons were hell, in a lot of ways, for both men, even though they were both also living their dreams.

Bolles became a magnet for penalty flags and Broncos Country boos. Joseph struggled in quarterback purgatory and was fired after two seasons.

Flash forward to the present, and both men are riding perhaps career-best seasons for the team they began with together nine years ago.

Joseph is an in-demand head coaching candidate for the second straight year and orchestrates a defense that took the ball from Josh Allen and the Bills five times on Saturday in the Divisional round.

Bolles made first-team All-Pro for the first time in his career, is a Pro Bowler for the first time in his career and is the team’s Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee for the second time in three seasons.

Bolles told The Post in the lead-up to Saturday’s game that he and Joseph talked regularly, even in the four years Joseph spent in Arizona as that team’s defensive coordinator.

“I’ve always kept in contact with him,” Bolles said. “He has love and respect for every player, looks at everybody and can identify with them, where they come from and what they need help in. He’s always willing to show you support and love and guidance. He’s not afraid to pull you aside and talk with you and communicate with you and to give you his insight about what you can do to be a better player, How to be a better player, how to study, how to learn formations. He’s just an all-around hell of a dude.”

Bolles said he and Joseph’s recent conversations have focused mostly on the run that the Broncos have put together this year, providing each with a first real shot at a Super Bowl.

Bolles, though, is sure that Joseph is ready for a head coaching job should Arizona, Baltimore or one of the other seven remaining teams with a vacancy come calling for him in the coming weeks.

They each have persevered through early tribulations here. They each have adapted and evolved.

They have a shared Broncos bond that way.

“He knows exactly what he needs to do on the second go-around,” Bolles said. “He knows what he needs to do better, what he needs to change, what he didn’t do that he should have done.

“That’s all from maturing, just like I’ve matured and grown up to be the left tackle that I am. He’s going to be the same way when he gets those reins. I’m just excited to see what the future holds for him.”

5. A quick early thought on each of Denver’s potential AFC title game opponents, through the lens of what Stidham can expect

New England

Much of the attention around the Patriots goes to second-year quarterback Drake Maye, who went from promising rookie on a bad team to MVP candidate on a 14-3 power. But for as much good as head coach Mike Vrabel and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels have done for Maye, the Patriots’ defensive turnaround is just as impressive.

New England finished eighth in total defense and fourth in scoring defense despite coordinator Terrell Williams being away from the team since training camp while battling prostate cancer.

Inside linebackers coach Zak Kuhr has called the defense and done a tremendous job.

Here’s what New England linebacker Robert Spillane said after the Patriots dominated the Los Angeles Chargers in the wild-card round:

“Zak has been great all year. He keeps the dial spinning,” Spillane said. “He keeps offenses guessing. All year, he’s been doing that. After the game, just talking to a few of the guys on their team, they had no clue what we were doing. And they came up and said that — ‘We had no clue what you guys were in all game.’

“So for him just to be able to build those packages throughout the week, our back-end players then knowing how to disguise the different defenses, that really keeps quarterbacks guessing.”

Quite a challenge for Stidham, Webb and Payton to decode this week.

Houston

Not a lot needs to be said here. The Texans’ ferocious defense scored two touchdowns last week in dominating on the road at Pittsburgh. They’ve been arguably the league’s best all year. They have talent at all three levels of head coach DeMeco Ryans and defensive coordinator Matt Burke’s group.

Nix and the Broncos turned the ball over once and punted it eight times in a November slugfest at Houston. Denver generated one touchdown and that was enough to win, 18-15, on a Wil Lutz walk-off. The Broncos’ defense didn’t allow a touchdown and played more than half the game against Texans backup quarterback Davis Mills after C.J. Stroud was knocked from the game with a concussion.

If Houston wins Sunday, the shoe will be on the other foot and it will be Denver, at home, trying to find paths through a terrific opposing defense with its backup quarterback.

6. The coaching carousel won’t spin for the Broncos this week, but it’s going to kick into gear sooner or later

With Denver advancing to the AFC Championship, coaching interviews are on hold for Broncos assistants until after that game next weekend.

Then the wheels will really be in motion, whether the Broncos are preparing for a Super Bowl appearance or packing their bags for the offseason.

Joseph, clearly, is in the mix for head coaching jobs.

The New York Jets announced Friday that they’d interviewed Broncos secondary coach Jim Leonhard as one of eight candidates for their open defensive coordinator job. Leonhard also interviewed for Dallas’ coordinator opening and two more potential spots – one that came open recently and one that may soon — are logical options.

Those are the New York Giants and Green Bay.

John Harbaugh is the new head man for the Giants. Leonhard played for Harbaugh in 2008, Harbaugh’s first year as Baltimore’s head coach.

The Packers’ job requires a domino to fall, but it is interesting nonetheless. NFL Network reported Saturday that Green Bay defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley is a “strong candidate” for the head coaching job in Miami. The Dolphins just hired Green Bay vice president of player personnel Jon-Eric Sullivan as their general manager, so that makes sense.

Back in 2021, Packers head coach Matt LaFleur offered the Packers’ defensive coordinator job to Leonhard. At that time, Leonard was the coordinator at his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin, and turned LaFleur down because he thought he had a long run ahead in Madison. Then he was named interim head coach but was spurned the full-time job at the last minute in the fall of 2022 when UW instead hired Luke Fickell. That set in motion the chain of events that ultimately led Leonhard to Denver in February 2024.

LaFleur could well be interested in Leonhard again if he loses his defensive coordinator to a head coach post. Leonhard starred in high school in Tony, Wisconsin, a village of 105 that is 200 miles from Green Bay.

Then there’s quarterbacks coach Davis Webb, who has generated three head coaching interviews and also figures to be a popular request for offensive coordinator vacancies.

All on the backburner for now, but not for long. Regardless of whether Denver has one or two games left in its season.

7a. The Broncos’ run game remains a major concern moving forward

Buffalo finished the regular season among the worst teams in the NFL defending the run. The Bills checked in No. 28 in total rushing yards allowed, No. 30 in rushing yards per attempt allowed (5.1) and No. 31 with 24 rushing touchdowns allowed.

The Broncos for the first half of the season were among the NFL’s best at rushing the football, but their numbers declined precipitously after J.K. Dobbins’ November foot injury.

On Denver’s first drive of the night, head coach Sean Payton had quarterback Bo Nix heavily involved in the run game. Overall, though, Denver really struggled to get anything going against the meager Bills’ rush defense.

The interesting thing: Payton hardly relied on his running back tandem of RJ Harvey and Jaleel McLaughlin. They combined for just 10 carries and 41 yards in regulation.

7b. Marvin Mims Jr. entered the Divisional round without having had much of an offensive impact over most of the regular season.

He had 322 receiving yards total and hadn’t had more than four catches or 29 yards since a big game in Denver’s wild, Week 7 comeback against the New York Giants. Then his Saturday afternoon started with getting rocked on the opening kickoff and having to be cleared of a potential concussion.

Boy, are the Broncos ever glad he did.

Mims saw his role skyrocket as other Broncos receivers like Pat Bryant (concussion) and Troy Franklin (hamstring) were ruled out during the game due to injuries.

Mims on Saturday caught all eight of his targets for 93 yards and hauled in a go-ahead touchdown with 55 seconds remaining in regulation.

Calm in the pocket and an absolute drop in the bucket to Marvin Mims. pic.twitter.com/vGyRucyTJ8

— Parker Gabriel (@ParkerJGabriel) January 18, 2026

The third-year player had more than 85 yards in a game this season and his lone touchdown of the year came in Week 2 against Indianapolis.

Talk about a perfect time to play your best game of the season.

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