Nov 03, 2025
3 min read
Analyzing the Broncos' stock report from Sunday's 18-15 win over the Texans, safety Talanoa Hufanga's stock continues to rise after a nine-tackle performance.
As Bo Nix said after the game, bad wins are how the Broncos do it now.Denver sits at 7-2 after a fourth-quarter win over Houston on Sunday, in which many of the familiar problems resurfaced but largely eliminated defensive prowess.Here is the Denver Post's stock report for the day.
Talanoa Hufanga: Hats off to the Broncos' Free Offices, who has been one of the most valuable players in the defense.Hufanga continues to challenge the ball against the nauseous non-communicatives later, he communicates with them later and makes a play on every field.The last line of defense in the Texans' win was a gem: Nine plays, two tackles, two tackles for four yards on 4.
The latter is especially important as Hufanga has been dangerous in increasing man-to-man coverage in Denver, allowing 22 catches in 73 days this season.He's a big part of the Broncos' plans without Patindle II, and he's helped the Texans a lot in the absence of their star CB1.
Jaaquan Mcmillian: There's a reason Peementare Barroni didn't get the starting award after 9 weeks, and his name is J-Mac.Mcmillian is one of the dumbest in the Denver room.He put his head in the camp and insisted that he was meant to be a nickel in Joseph's protection - and he has been re-baptized ever since.He is one of the most important pieces in Joseph's coverage plan, allowing 13 yards on seven carries on Saturday.Quarterbacks averaged just 70.5 points against McMillian's career this year.
Zach Allen: Let's keep running through Game Balls for the defense.elen is a breaking, first break, and two passes are consistently over the ball in qb heat (25), and the difference between him and #2 is greater than the difference between #2.2 and no.27. This is not a typo.
Sean Payton Cheats: Why Don't We Keep It Running?A week ago, the Broncos' skill players laughed when Denver spliced together videos of their college fight songs on touchdown plays in Saturday night's film review.Last week, the staff filmed a video of the players' families cheering them on during practice replays.Rookie RB RJ Harvey caught a TD against the Texans on one of those same plays.Maybe the Broncos' head coach will figure out a way to protect himself from the future and split it at some point over Saturday's cuts.
Second-down offense: Denver's offense is stuck in the mud, and it has two missed calls from Payton to thank for it.Tyler Bady's second and second tackle in the second quarter went for a 6-yard loss.Third-and-10 in the third quarter with Troy Franklin lost at the 6. The Broncos didn't help themselves in those situations.
In nine games, the Knicks have thrown nearly a third of their passes on second downs for more than 4 yards.He has a 63.4 quarterback rating in those situations.That's more than a large enough sample size to bother you, and indicates that Denver's offense works best when it's buzzing early.
Evan Engram: Joker's face paint is slowly wearing off.It's not Engram's fault: The Knicks left him open on two targets Sunday and he completely missed both times, including a nice catch and a drive that went for an easy touchdown in the first quarter.But Engram went 0 for 3 on his goals and has yet to show solid chemistry with the Knicks in situations where he's not a basic read.
In the year, the Anglam has a chest of 26 meters of 215 unique heads and there is chaos in eight games.This is not the production that paid $ 16.5 million dollars for this offshore, although someone has a shoulder.
Someone is not ready to special groups: Payton Rizzi Rizzi, and he was doing that doing a wonderful job.
Instead, he made it clear that his special teams frustration was with the personnel. In particular, there seemed to be one poor guy who was late for kickoff on Sunday.
"The player that's supposed to be there, I'm going to find someone else to do his job," Payton said Monday.
Thursday night may reveal who went to Peyton's doghouse.
The Knicks-Sutton connection: Yes, Cortland Sutton produced perhaps the biggest offensive play of the day, with a 30-yard touchdown run after a perfect Knicks field goal in the second quarter.But Nix and Sutton couldn't connect on the other five targets, and Sutton even showed some frustration in the second half of the third that Nix threw behind him.This is not the main issue, but generally a feature of out-of-sync gameplay from Nix.
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