Signature Win: Denver Broncos Prove Themselves vs. Green Bay Packers

The Denver Broncos were thought of as frauds, or at best a good defensive team that's had an easy schedule; until they thoroughly beat the Green Bay Packers 34-26 on Sunday.

Denver beating the Pack' was a signature win for this 2025 Broncos team.

In fact, the Broncos beating Green Bay was a signature win for the entire Sean Payton Era in the Mile High City.

Broncos 34 - Packers 26 is a Signature Win

Green Bay has been the much-hyped team this entire season.

They had a great defense and then traded for Micah Parsons. All while Jordan Love, now in his fifth season, is easily enjoying his best campaign yet. Love is playing MVP-level football; many have been saying the Packers can win it all.

Meanwhile, Bo Nix has been hot himself in the three previous games before the Signature Win™️ over the Packers. Of course, not at the same level as Love, but Nix has steadily been improving over the course of this, his second season's second half. And Denver's defense is arguably the best in the NFL, a fact that Tony Romo kept admitting ad nauseam as the Broncos were the Game of the Week on CBS.

But the Broncos defense, which came into the league as the NFL leader in sacks with 55, couldn't get to Love for most of the first three quarters. Instead, Love made brilliant throw after incredible toss; some from off his back foot, one, maybe the greatest catch you'll ever see a running back make to Josh Jacobs.

Despite the Packers playing efficiently on offense, the Denver D held them to two field goals early.

Nix led a touchdown drive; a nifty scramble outside and toss to Michael Bandy. A dandy, even, to lead 7-6. But that touchdown catch for Jacobs made it 13-7 with 4:29 left in the first half.

Denver never flinched though. All game long, it was punch for punch. Blow for blow by these two elite teams in what could very well be a Super Bowl preview.

Nix and the Broncos went into their 4-minute offense and marched 72 yards in 6 plays, capped with a touchdown throw to Lil'Jordan Humphrey, the veteran's first score of the season.

But the Pack' made sure to put together their own quick scoring drive; Brandon McManus hit the 35-yard field goal to put Green Bay back ahead 16-14 at the break.

Like he has many times this year, Sean Payton told sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson he felt good about the second half. These Broncos are a second-half team, after all.

Still, the Packers quickly moved the ball out of the break for a 71-yard touchdown drive. And the Broncos answered with a 3-and-out.

It seemed like Denver could hang with the legitimate contenders for a half, but they were about to fall apart.

That's when Pat Surtain made the best play on a ball I've ever seen from him; he laid out and dove for the ball as if he were the receiver, not the defensive back. He floated through the air and secured the ball through the ground for the momentum-shifting pick.

Denver carried that momentum down the field for the go-ahead touchdown when Nix put perfect touch on the ball to Courtland Sutton.

While Love uncharacteristically turned the ball over, Nix made sure to make it count and threw a picture-perfect pass. Denver led 23-21, still early in the 3rd.

When the Broncos defense stopped the Packers again, Nix and Co. continued to put the pressure on with their fourth 70-yard touchdown drive of the day. This time, Troy Franklin was on the receiving end of Nix's nifty throw.

Nix tied his career-high with 4 TD passes in a game with that score, and pushed the lead to 4 points; 27-23. But there was an entire quarter of play to go.

Denver had to be feeling good with the lead though, because they're the best 4th-quarter team in the NFL.

When the defense stepped up again and held the Packers to another field goal, the offense scored their third straight touchdown to push the lead to 8 with 7:27 to play.

That's when Love was picked of for the second time on the day. This time, by Riley Moss.

Love only had 4 INTs on the season before Sunday, but Denver picked him off twice. That's elite defensive play.

And even though the offense had trouble closing the game out, the defense again came up huge sacking Love twice late to secure the Broncos signature win of the season.

Bo Nix outplayed Jordan Love

Bo Nix played one of the best games of his life on Sunday, finishing with a stellar 134.7 passer rating, doubling Jordan Love's 68.3 rating.

In fact, it was Love's lowest passer rating of the year, and Nix's highest.

Coming into the game, Love's efficiency mixed with his big-play passing made him a top-4 MVP candidate by multiple articles.

Bill Barnwell wrote:

One of the most popular and surprising stats going around football nerd social media over the past few weeks has involved the Packers' quarterback. Do you know who leads the league in EPA per dropback? It isn't Stafford (fifth) or Maye (third). It's Love, whose 0.36 EPA per dropback blows away the rest of the league. Nobody else is over 0.22. Second-placed Goff is about as close to C.J. Stroud in 13th place as he is to Love in first. Nobody has led a more productive offense on a dropback-to-dropback basis than Love.

Here's a visualization of how much Love has been balling out. He's in first, while Nix is in 23rd:

But Nix put on a show. He was efficient, sure. We've seen that all year long, even when he's struggled. Today though, Nix took shots and hit them.

That touchdown toss to Sutton was one, and another to Sutton on a 4th down, were as perfect as any quarterback can throw.

Even when he's played well in other games—like the win over Washington—Nix has made mistakes (his silly pick in the 3rd quarter). Today, Nix was damn-near perfect.

That's saying a lot considering the Packers defense is a great unit. He nullified Parsons' pass rush and wasn't sacked, nor did he turn the ball over once.

As much as this was a signature win for the Broncos, it was maybe the biggest win in Nix's career to this point. He played a complete, controlled, explosive, and accurate game. It was easily his highest-rated game of the year, and third-highest of his career. And his 88.0 QBR was the second-highest of his career, only the B-team Chiefs in Week 18 last year was better.

Coming into Sunday's game, Benjamin Solak said on Mina Kimes' podcast that he was picking the Packers for a few reasons. Namely, Jordan Love is great against man defense and the Broncos play a ton of man. And, conversely, Bo Nix is bad against the zone and Green Bay's defense plays a lot of zone.

He talked about it in this ESPN piece too:

Solak: This is a tough defensive draw for Denver. The Packers run zone coverage at the fourth-highest rate among all defenses, and Bo Nix has been decidedly worse against zone coverage than man coverage this season. His completion percentage against man coverage is 4% above expectation, but against zone coverage it is 6.6% below expectation. As such, his success rate drops from 51% to 42%, and his EPA per dropback falls from 0.24 to 0.03.

Solak is obviously a ball-knower; he's on Mina's podcast every week. But this week, Nix laughed at his numbers and stole the Packers heart.

Love is into his fifth year, and in a way, has finally just now proven himself to be the guy in Green Bay.

Nix is continually proving he's the guy in the Mile High, and a win like today's helps cement him as the Broncos true franchise quarterback. Which, I wondered if he was earlier in the year.

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Over the last four games, Nix has averaged:

69.5% completions for 282.5 yards, 1.25 touchdowns, 0.25 interceptions per game.

And while he simply took what the Raiders gave him last week, in the other three wins over the Chiefs, Commanders, and now Packers, the young quarterback has averaged 12.3, 11.1, and now 13.1 yards per completion. While he has been known as a checkdown merchant, Nix is breaking out of that lately.

He lit the Packers up in the intermediate game, going 5-7 with 1 TD from 10-20 yards, and was brilliant deep, going 4-6 on 20-plus yard throws with 1 TD.

In Broncos Country, we've all been aboard the "Bo-llercoaster" for two years. Right now, Nix is playing his most consistent football yet. If he continues to play this well, the Broncos Super Bowl aspirations will only become more legitimate.

Speaking of, Denver's chances of making Super Bowl LX have increased to 22.8% per ESPN FPI and they have the second-best chances of winning it (10.3%) to only the LA Rams.

Broncos looked like real contenders, Packers the pretenders

It wasn't just that Bo Nix outperformed Jordan Love, the Broncos looked like the true contenders, while the Packers were not up to the task.

The Packers committed 10 total penalties on the game, tied for the second-most in a contest for them all year. Some of them were costly, too.

The one that sticks out the most is the 12 men on the field/offsides call on 3rd and 3 from the Packers 8 yard line. Nix threw the ball incomplete, but Denver was awarded a free first down. And the Broncos scored on the next play.

Matt LaFleur's Packers had to call two of their second half timeouts before the fourth quarter, were called for multiple delay of games, and had a touchdown wiped off the board due to an illegal shift.

Considering LaFleur is an offensive genius, those presnap penalties and the mishandling of his timeouts must really frustrate him. Sean Payton out-coached LaFleur, just like he out-coached Andy Reid a month ago.

Again, the Packers were the team many were pointing to as a legitimate Super Bowl contender. But they were humbled on Sunday in Denver.

Instead, the Broncos were the team who walk away looking like the true contenders, and undoubtedly the team to beat in the AFC.

Denver's beaten both Super Bowl teams from last year, even if both of them have fallen a bit. The Broncos blew out the Cowboys, who are still fighting for a playoff spot. And they edged out the Texans in Houston, after injuring C.J. Stroud.

Still, the narrative was they hadn't beaten anyone.

This was easily their most-important win this year. This proves they are legitimate contenders.

It wasn't just that Denver won, it wasn't that they eked out the victory like the 33-point 4th quarter against the Giants, or the last-second field goal to beat the Chiefs; the Broncos thoroughly beat Green Bay.

This was a heavyweight fight between two contenders. Denver took every punch the Packers threw at them, and the Broncos swung right back. Eventually knocking Love, LaFleur and the Packers out.

This signature win might as well have been a playoff contest in a Sunday full of games that felt like that. And the Broncos rose to the occasion in all three phases.

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