Bo Nix broke a record for one-score wins on Sunday, and he did it the same way he has been doing most of this season: with Denver under pressure late. The Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers 26-21 in Week 9, and Nix’s start was his 16th straight win as a starter in games decided by one score or less.
The record had belonged to Kansas City and Patrick Mahomes from the 2023-24 seasons, a run NBC Sports research said stood as the longest since 1950, including playoffs. Nix turned this one after Denver trailed 14-13 after three quarters, then led two fourth-quarter scoring drives and hit Pat Bryant on a 26-yard touchdown pass with 5:41 left to put the Broncos ahead for good.
That drive was the kind of finish Denver has leaned on again and again. Nix finished with 237 passing yards and two touchdowns, completed six of seven passes on third down for 72 yards and a touchdown, and earned his 13th career fourth-quarter comeback. The Broncos now have five fourth-quarter comebacks, the most in the NFL, and Nix entered the season after five fourth-quarter comebacks and seven game-winning drives last year.
The odd part is that the streak has not softened the critique around him. Sean Payton said the run “pisses me off” because there are “a few of them that you would say shouldn’t have been one-score games,” and then added that the Broncos still have work to do. That tracks with how Denver has played: it lost by double digits to Kansas City in Week 1, and Ryan Fitzpatrick recently said after a Thursday Night Football game that it was “really frustrating to watch,” while also saying Nix was not playing competitively.
Nix has kept answering in the only way that matters on the field. He said, “I try to be extremely aggressive when I get the opportunities,” and Denver keeps living in fourth quarters because he keeps dragging it there. The streak is now a record, but the larger question is whether the Broncos are building a reliable close-game team or simply surviving one tense finish after another.
