DENVER — Maybe it was Jaycee Horn who put Sean Payton in such a foul mood despite his team’s two touchdown victory.
An angry Horn approached Payton during the postgame handshake event and accused the Broncos’ head coach of “trying to run the score up.” Other Carolina Panther players made similar comments in the visiting, and losing, locker room.
“I coached his father,’’ Payton said, referring to Joe Horn. “So I was yelling back at him. I don’t know what the exchange was but his father I enjoyed coaching. He was frustrated, I think he was yelling at one of our other players. I like him, he’s a good player.”
The issue was two trick plays the Broncos ran in the fourth quarter while up 28-7. The first was a fake, 60-yard field goal with about 10 minutes remaining and the ball at the Carolina 42 yard line. Maybe having Riley Dixon drop one of his punts inside the 10 would have been the expected call. But the field position dictated trying to keep the ball and run more clock.
The second was a double pass with about 5 minutes remaining. Again, it was 28-7 and again it was fourth down and was at the same spot, give or take, at the Carolina 43. Broncos quarterback Bo Nix threw a lateral pass left to receiver Courtland Sutton who then threw across the field to wide-open fullback Michael Burton for a 28-yard gain.
OK, so that was a surprise. But on the fourth-and-2 situation, would it have been cleared by the unwritten sportsmanlike rules if Payton tried to run for the first down? Absolutely.
As for running up the score, consider this: Nix was 21 of 27 for 220 yards and two touchdowns in first half. He was only 7 of 10 for 64 yards with a touchdown in the second half.
The Broncos ran it 19 times in the second half; 13 times in first half.
So Payton took foot off gas playcall-wise.
Also consider last season’s 70-20 embarrassing loss the Broncos took at Miami last year. Payton said afterwards he didn’t think the Dolphins ran up the score even though with 9 minutes remaining, they threw a 68-yard touchdown bomb to pass pad the score from 56-13 to 63-13.
What really irked Payton though was the final score Sunday against the Panthers should have been 35-7 and instead it was 28-14. Sutton caught a pass to reach the 100-yard single-game milestone for himself and the Carolina 1-yard line for the team. But Sutton fumbled the ball away and Carolina drove 98 yards for a consolation touchdown.
The Denver defense allowed a half-field touchdown drive off a fumble by Broncos’ receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey to start the game and another touchdown on their final, full-field drive after the Sutton fumble. In between, the Denver D held Bryce Young and the Panthers scoreless off 9 consecutive possessions. Was Payton impressed overall with the Denver defense?
“I was. I wish we would have finished better,’’ Payton said. “I said this – that was not a good offense we played. It’s just the truth. We expected that and we’re going to see a lot better teams.”
Nothing irks Payton more than turnovers. His message to his team all week was essentially if we don’t turn the ball over, this team can’t beat us. And yet there were fumbles by a receiver off the first possession and a receiver off the last full possession.
“I said to them we’re going to play in bigger games than this,’’ Payton said. “In bigger games than this some of those mistakes are going to cost us. So we’ve got to take care of that.”
Said Nix: Bo: “I feel like it’s great respect from him. He sees something in our team and now we have to be able to execute. Go out there and have a high standard like him.”
Browning would like to stay
With the trade deadline only 9 days away (2 p.m. MST, Tuesday, Nov. 5) any player whose contract expires and is eligible for free agency after this season is vulnerable.
Baron Browning is one of those players. The Broncos’ outside linebacker is in the fourth and final year of his rookie contract and NFL Media reported this weekend he could be trade bait.
“I can only control what I can control,’’ Browning, who has lost his starting outside linebacker spot first to a four-week stay on injured reserve because of a foot issue, and then because Nik Bonitto has a sack in six consecutive games, said in the postgame locker room Sunday. “I can’t control what happens in the future, I have to stay in the moment. I do what I can to help this team win games. I would like to stay here. I don’t want to leave but some things are out of my control.”
NFL Media also said Broncos’ starting outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper could also be available but it makes more sense to extend the former seventh-round draft pick with a new contract than trade him away. Cooper picked up another sack Sunday, giving him 5.5 through eight games. A seventh-round pick in the 2021 draft, Cooper as a four-year starter is arguably the best value pick Broncos’ general manager George Paton has made.
