ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — As the Bills kneeled out the clock on a 31-7 win and the seconds ticked away on the Broncos' 2024 season, a set of dueling emotions emerged.
There was, undoubtedly, a sense of disappointment from a season that ended too soon for the Broncos' liking.
"We felt pretty confident coming into this game, relative to what we thought we could do," Head Coach Sean Payton said, "and yet, we weren't able to do it."
A number of small moments — from a couple of dropped passes to a missed 50-yard field goal to a miraculous Bills touchdown grab that was upheld upon video review — cost the Broncos a chance to keep their unexpected success going.
"That's playoff ball," defensive lineman Zach Allen said. "Any little mistake can just make or break the game. It's not like the regular season. It's tough when you have a young team to kind of relay that. It's kind of a little bit of a deal like trial by fire. You have 53-plus [players] in there that now know what it is. Hopefully that leads to some future success."
After taking a 7-0 lead via a 43-yard Bo Nix to Troy Franklin touchdown on the opening possession, Denver did not score again. And while the Broncos kept the game within one score until late in the third quarter, Allen's fourth-and-1 touchdown pass to Ty Johnson and the ensuing two-point conversion pushed the Bills' lead to 14 points and opened the floodgates.
"The teams that you're going to play when you get to this point in the season, all of them are elite, and we obviously found that out today," tight end Adam Trautman said.
Whether in the time-of-possession battle, defending the run game or finding third-down success on offense, Denver came up short in its biggest test of the season.
"The things we felt we needed to do on the road to win, we didn't do nearly well enough," Payton said.
As Payton said Sunday, "it's got to fuel you and light a fire" for the Broncos as they turn toward the future.
"You never want to have these feelings in the game of football, and it works towards all the work that you do in the offseason to make sure you never feel this way again," tackle Mike McGlinchey said. "Got to go back to the drawing board, got to get better and got to make sure that we win a couple of these next year."
With that hunger and drive and resolve came the other emotion.
Pride.
For what they accomplished in 2024. For how they proved a host of people wrong. And for how they reset the standard in Broncos Country after a long stretch of disappointment.
"We know what that feels like now," wide receiver Courtland Sutton said. "We know what it takes to become a playoff team and to be a playoff team. The new standard has been set for this organization and for this team, relative to as of late. It's now: The Denver Broncos must be a playoff team. That now becomes where our mindset is, and it's no longer, 'We need to break the curse. We need to break the curse.' … Nah, we have a really good team. We have really good players, and we did a lot with less. Hearing guys talk about the whole [salary] cap situation, I wasn't too much aware of it. I've heard people talk about it. You look at the situation that we had, and all the different chips that were put against us, and we came out and performed. Like I said, we have a really good locker room.
"The standard has been set, and I'm looking forward to going into this offseason to see where this team continues to go. I think there's a lot of promise for what we have and what's to come."
That promise includes the emergence of Nix. The Broncos' rookie quarterback "hung in there" and "battled" on Sunday, according to Payton, and it seems that he'll be a driving force toward pushing the Broncos toward more success.
"The cliché, good answer would be, 'We had a winning season, we made it to the playoffs, we did something that we haven't done in a while,'" Nix said. "We competed hard against teams that are really good. We just kind of showed [and] proved to ourselves that we belong in some of these games. You play this game to reach the highest level, so I don't want to be complacent, and I don't want to ever be just comfortable and satisfied and happy with something that looks good on the outside. You play this game to win, and everybody's working for a Super Bowl. We owe that to ourselves because of the time that we put into it. Unfortunately, only one team can do that at the end of the year, so every [year] 31 teams are going home disappointed.
"It's a lot to grow from, a lot to build from. I'm excited where we are. I'm excited to be here at this time, because our trajectory is going up. I'm excited for it. A lot of things we have out in front of us [and] a lot to look forward to, which I'm pumped about."
Despite a postseason run that ended too soon, Nix's and his teammates' enthusiasm for the future sets the stage for the Broncos to fight for a return to the playoffs — and to accomplish a whole lot more when they get back.
