BALTIMORE — When quarterback Bo Nix did his best Courtland Sutton impression Sunday, leaping over a defender to catch a pass on a trick play from the wide receiver in the second quarter of Sunday’s game against the Ravens, the Broncos celebrated a score that appeared to draw them within punching distance of an AFC powerhouse.
Rumbling below that euphoria, though, was an avalanche that had already started to roll. The Broncos may not have known it when Nix’s highlight catch cut the deficit to three points midway through the second quarter, but it was already too late to avoid the destructive path. The fury was coming.
The @Broncos get tricky!
Courtland Sutton throws it to Bo Nix for the TD!
📺: #DENvsBAL on CBS/Paramount+
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/rUYLro5Mw2— NFL (@NFL) November 3, 2024
“We got whooped today,” coach Sean Payton said after his team’s 41-10 loss to the Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium, where the Broncos received a harsh reality about what separates them from the NFL’s middle class and life at the top. The Broncos and Ravens sported identical 5-3 records entering the game, but they looked worlds apart Sunday.
The Ravens scored touchdowns on four straight possessions during a span of 17 minutes across the second and third quarters. That included a 53-yard pass from Lamar Jackson to Zay Flowers with 16 seconds left in the second quarter and two straight touchdown drives to begin the second half. Excluding kneeldowns, the Broncos ran six plays during that same stretch for minus-2 yards.
The Broncos’ chance to send a message to the rest of the NFL had evaporated in a relative blink. It was as if Jackson, Flowers and running back Derrick Henry had carried buckets of cold water from Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and poured them all over Denver’s feel-good start to the season. It was a reminder, made through an endless of string of explosive pass plays and bruising runs, that the climb to contention gets much steeper at the top.
“When you get your teeth beat in like this, it’s something where, ‘OK, it happened. How can we get better so it doesn’t occur again?’” cornerback Riley Moss said. “That’s what winning teams do and we’ve got the guys to be able to do that.”
Payton was in a foul mood in the aftermath of the Broncos’ 28-14 win over the Carolina Panthers last week because he had just witnessed his team make avoidable mistakes he better opponents would not so easily forgive. He saw missed opportunities to extend drives or get the opponent off the field — but minor nuisances against the Panthers — that would spell death in the kind of challenging matchups that dot Denver’s schedule in November.
The Broncos had to learn that lesson in a much harder way on Sunday. And it’s a misery, Payton said, the team — from the coaching staff to its players — will have to “embrace” as they turn their attention to next week’s matchup with the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs.
“You just can’t bulls–t yourself,” Payton said, “including the head coach or any of us. We’ve got to be able to say, ‘Hey, we get on that plane and go back to work (Monday).’ It’s one of the tough things about our league. As great as winning on the road is … and as high as that feeling is, it’s the opposite when you don’t. So that’s where we’re at.”
#BroncosCountry LIVE: HC Sean Payton meets the media after #DENvsBAL https://t.co/DZlLekEGP6
— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) November 3, 2024
The Broncos turned the ball over on the first possession Sunday for the third time in the last four games. The turnover this time was an interception by Nix on the game’s second play that glanced off Lil’Jordan Humphrey. The veteran wide receiver lost a fumble on Denver’s first possession against the Panthers last week and accepted responsibility for the damaging early miscue Sunday.
“I know better. I’ve got to put two hands up,” he said. “That’s a mistake on me.”
Denver forced a punt on the Ravens’ ensuing possession and then moved from its 2-yard line to Baltimore’s 44. Nix quickly flushed the interception, hitting Sutton — the veteran recorded a second consecutive 100-yard game for the first time in his career — for a 26-yard gain to move Denver into Baltimore territory. But two chances to gain 1 yard came up empty and resulted in a turnover on downs. The Broncos, trailing 7-0, moved to the Baltimore 33-yard line on their next possession, but Nix’s pass for Troy Franklin sailed long in the end zone, a third straight empty drive to begin the game.
“A lot of what-ifs in this game, but the fact of the matter is we got our butts kicked,” Nix said.
Sutton put it another way: “We had a lot of opportunities that could have went another way, but one of my boys always says, ‘If ‘if’ was a fifth, we’d all be drunk.’”
After the Ravens kicked a field goal to take a 10-0 lead, Nix once again moved the Broncos down the field, showing poise in the pocket and scrambling for 15 yards on a third-and-5 play to extend the drive. The drive ended in Nix’s touchdown catch on fourth down, a play that made him the only player in the NFL this season to have a receiving, rushing and passing touchdown.
“He’s consistent. He doesn’t flinch,” right guard Quinn Meinerz said of Nix. “We’ve got his back and he’s got our back. It’s a ton of fun to play with him.”
But even as the Broncos found some offensive rhythm in the first half behind their rookie quarterback — three drives of 11 plays — it was going to take near perfection to keep pace with the Ravens and Jackson, who posted a perfect 158.3 passer rating for the fourth time in his decorated career. After Nix’s touchdown catch, the Ravens quickly answered with a seven-play, 63-yard touchdown drive that ended in a Flowers touchdown catch that pushed the lead back to 17-7. The Broncos answered with a field goal, but even a two-minute drive that produced a score had costly failings. After a 7-yard run by Williams gave the Broncos a first down at the Baltimore 12-yard line with 1:20 left in the second quarter, the Ravens called their first time out of the half.
The sequence for the Broncos to follow included a 3-yard run by Jaleel McLaughlin that went out of bounds, a run for no gain by fullback Michael Burton, a holding call on left tackle Garett Bolles that negated a Nix touchdown run and an incomplete pass from Nix to Troy Franklin. The drive ended with a 37-yard field goal by Wil Lutz to pull the Broncos to within 17-10, but it left the Ravens with 54 seconds and one timeout.
Two plays later, Jackson hit Flowers for the 53-yard touchdown to push the lead to 14 points.
“It’s a big swing,” Payton said. “You know when you play a good team like this on the road, you’re wanting to get it into the fourth quarter and we weren’t able to do that.”
Cue the avalanche.
Henry, who rushed for 106 yards and two touchdowns, began pounding away in the second half. He had 42 yards alone on Baltimore’s opening drive of the third quarter, which ended in a touchdown that all but put Denver away with more than a full quarter still left to play. Jackson, who missed two days of practice this week with back and knee issues, was content to carve up the Broncos’ secondary from the pocket, only escaping when he needed to pick up a first down on a scramble in the third quarter. A Denver defense that entered the game ranked first in TruMedia’s defensive EPA per play (-0.14) couldn’t take away anything the Ravens wanted to do.
“We missed some tackles and in terms of coverage and stuff, we could have been tighter,” Moss said. “For the most part, we were playing zone today and eyes, at times, were a little crazy. It’s looking inward and figuring out what we need to do a little better. We have to come out and play harder and play more fundamentally sound. It doesn’t take much skill to make a tackle and do your job, and that’s something we need to do better at.”
The loss doesn’t fundamentally change the big picture for the Broncos. They still have a viable path to the postseason, even if they can’t pull off an upset win against the Chiefs next week to conclude the most challenging stretch of their schedule. But Sunday was a reminder there are levels to truly contending in the NFL.
From the level the Broncos currently occupy, they can’t yet see teams like the Ravens.
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(Photo of Bo Nix: Greg Fiume / Getty Images)
