LAS VEGAS — Courtland Sutton thought he needed a thesaurus.
His smile said otherwise.
The Broncos wide receiver couldn’t pull an adjective to describe sweeping the hated division-rival Las Vegas Raiders for the first time in his career, but he didn’t need one.
His reaction — a big, knowing, competitive, relieved grin — conveyed the entire message.
That this team is for real.
That this team believes fully in the powers of rookie quarterback Bo Nix.
That the sins of this team’s past are perhaps finally in the past.
“The tide is turning,” Sutton said after catching eight passes for 97 yards and two second-half touchdowns in a 29-19 win that was uglier than the score indicated and sweeter than Sutton or anybody else in the Broncos locker room could fully articulate.
“The elite teams, 17 regular-season games, will be really ready-ready for 13 or 14 of those games and the ones they’re not, they still find a way to win,” head coach Sean Payton said. “They may lose a few, but they find a way still. I said to them today, ‘Our team a year ago doesn’t win this game.’
“But this team did.”
Payton believes that for several reasons — he quickly tried to shut down a follow-up about why and said he wasn’t speaking ill of the 2023 team — but it starts with the quarterback.
Nix has checked boxes game by game over the past several weeks.
This, perhaps for the first time, was a game the Broncos won because they had him.
Quarterback Bo Nix (10) of the Denver Broncos celebrates after the fourth quarter of the Broncos’ 29-19 win over the Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
In the season opener a year ago, Russell Wilson took two sacks and didn’t handle the Raiders’ pressure well, including in a key red-zone sequence early in the fourth quarter. The Broncos lost.
In the 2023 season finale, Jarrett Stidham was sacked five times and turned the ball over. The Broncos lost.
On Sunday, the Raiders emptied the tank trying to fluster Nix. They zero-blitzed him on the first snap of the game and three times in the first drive.
They caught the Broncos off guard, but couldn’t make it pay.
By the time the game ended, Nix had been sacked just once in 44 drop-backs.
“It’s all learning,” Payton said. “You can only do so much in the simulator and then all of a sudden it’s like, ‘This is what happened today.’ Both of us. They had a couple of corners out and so we go from expecting a lot of zone coverage to, here comes zero pressure.
“We made some plays in the second half with it and we made enough plays.”
Nix made a free-charging Maxx Crosby miss multiple times.
He mitigated the impact of a pair of Mike McGlinchey holding penalties by throwing darts down the middle of the field.
He didn’t press when the Broncos offense settled for field goals early and trailed 13-9 at halftime. Instead, the rookie quarterback and his head coach rummaged around, found the right tools in their expanding collection and wrenched control of the game back into their hands.
“It was a complete team win, very resilient from our guys,” Nix said. “We just never lost that edge. We never lost faith on the sideline and we always figured we were going to find a way to win and that’s just what marks a good team.”
Of course, this team also has a defense that is consistently good rather than one like last year that went on a mid-season turnover bonanza.
For the second time in as many games against the Raiders, an interception turned the tide.
In Week 5, of course, Pat Surtain II’s 100-yard pick-six turned a potential 17-3 deficit into a 10-all game.
Sunday, Brandon Jones nabbed a Gardner Minshew overthrow — forced by Jonathon Cooper’s pressure — and ran it back 37 yards to set the offense up in the red zone.
Malcolm Roach (97) of the Denver Broncos recovers a fumble by Desmond Ridder (10) of the Las Vegas Raiders during the fourth quarter of the Broncos’ 29-19 win at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
That proved to be a spark for both sides of the ball.
“Turnovers kill games,” Nix said after the Broncos won the battle, 2-0. “You can’t turn the ball over and expect to win. We’ve done a good job of forcing turnovers and his return set us up inside the red zone. When you don’t have to drive the length of the field already and you get placed in the red zone, it makes it a lot easier.
“Momentum’s a real thing in this game, it’s very important, and after that we scored and it was like, ‘OK, this is our time to take it over.’
“We did after that.”
Payton’s team now clearly believes it belongs in the AFC conversation. It oozed off Sutton after the game. He said the Broncos have a lot of players, “Who are desperate, but not in a bad way” for success.
If desperate is the adjective Sutton is looking for, then it’s channeled desperation.
This group isn’t flailing around wildly trying to capture it.
They have a formula for the first time in quite a long time. They play strong defense and they have a quarterback who over the past 10 games has generated 20 touchdowns — 16 passing, three rushing, one receiving — turned the ball over twice and been sacked on just 4% of his drop-backs.
No, this team isn’t like last year’s.
It wins the games it’s supposed to win.
It swept the Raiders for the first time in a decade.
“It’s great to win these divisional games and do things that we haven’t been able to do in a while here,” Sutton said. “It’s good to be able to see the tide turn. Now it’s upon us to keep it there. This division has been a tricky one for some years and it’s on us to be able to find ways to turn that tide.”
More streaks could end in the coming weeks if Nix becomes the team’s first offensive rookie of the year since 2002 (Clinton Portis) or Sutton becomes the first 1,000-yard receiver or rusher since 2019.
There’s really one left on the board that matters, though: The eight-year playoff drought.
This team has that one in its sights, too.
Pat Surtain II (2) of the Denver Broncos tackles DJ Turner (19) of the Las Vegas Raiders during the fourth quarter of the Broncos’ 29-19 win at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
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