The upcoming game against Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills will be meaningful for the Denver Broncos, who had to wait for eight years to be back in the postseason. Bo Nix, however, has even bigger goals now that his team made it to the 2025 NFL playoffs.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the Wild Card weekend, the rookie quarterback made sure to raise the bar in Denver. While returning to the playoffs was great, Nix warned his teammates and the Bills that the Broncos will not settle with a mere postseason appearance. His intention is to go the distance and challenge for a championship.
“I don’t want to be handcuffed by just making it, just because we haven’t done it in so long,” Nix said, via the Broncos‘ website. “If we’re going to make it, we might as well go win some games.
“Honestly, it’d be a shame to get this far, start enjoying where you are and then become complacent and not do your best in this game when you have a chance to go out there and compete to go win.”
Bo Nix #10 of the Denver Broncos gives a thumbs up in the second quarter of a game against the Baltimore Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium on November 03, 2024 in Baltimore, Maryland.
Nix, Broncos seen as underdogs for playoff game vs Allen’s Bills
It hasn’t been an easy year in the Mile High City, with the Broncos waiting until the 2024 NFL regular season finale to clinch a playoff berth. Nix and company finished third in the AFC West, but it was still good enough to keep their season alive.
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Denver booked its ticket to the postseason in great fashion though, claiming a comfortable 38-0 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, who rested their starters in Week 18 after clinching the No. 1 seed in the AFC on Christmas.
The Bills, on the other hand, won the AFC East with many weeks to go and finished second in the conference with a 13-4 record. Led by an in-form Allen, who made a strong case for the MVP award, Buffalo looks like a challenging test for the Broncos.
Still, head coach Sean Payton believes in his team: “We all like a challenge, right? I guess it’s like a challenge when someone says ‘X.’ The first thing I think of is, ‘Who is that someone?’ I think your players certainly do have a little bit of a chip when they see those initial prognostications or whatever. Then eventually when you’re in this long enough, you tune that stuff out because half those people don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.“
Broncos HC Sean Payton echoes Nix’s sentiment
The last time the Broncos made the playoffs, they went on to win the Super Bowl. This year, other teams look like the real contenders, and Allen’s Bills are one of them. Either way, Payton shares Nix’s vision of believing in themselves to achieve something bigger.
“Put your best foot forward in preparing to play your best game against a real good football team. That’s where the focus is,” Payton said Monday. “The euphoria of, ‘We’re back in the playoffs. We finally have gotten back in.’ Trying to monitor that and understand how that may — or try to prevent that from impacting the edge and the preparation. I think that comes up often as a head coach sometimes and vice versa during the season when the sky is falling. Making sure that your players understand that it’s really not. It’s just cloudy, rainy and stormy, but it’s going to be sunny again.”
