![\"Broncos](\"https:\/\/news2.watchtowatch.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/MixCollage-12-Nov-2025-07-45-PM-6513-e1763000727277.jpg\")
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The\u00a0Denver Broncos\u00a0rank fourth in fourth-quarter points per game through 10 weeks this season. However, Broncos head coach\u00a0Sean Payton\u00a0is concerned with how his team has performed during the other three frames in games, which rank no better than 15th (1Q).<\/p>\n
The Broncos face their AFC West rivals, the\u00a0Kansas City Chiefs, in Week 11, and Payton has already\u00a0set the tone\u00a0for how significant this matchup is.<\/p>\n
They have much larger goals, though, and reaching them will require cleaning up their issues.<\/p>\n
Payton was again presented with a question about the Chiefs, this time regarding the differences between this year\u2019s team and those of seasons past. There was not much to critique.<\/p>\n
That is particularly true with wide receiver\u00a0Rashee Rice\u00a0back from a six-game suspension.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a reason this team has won for a long period of time,\u201d\u00a0Payton told reporters\u00a0on November 12. \u201cIt\u2019s talent, it\u2019s coaching, it\u2019s a program, it\u2019s a GM, it\u2019s ownership, and that\u2019s where we\u2019re aspiring to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first thing Payton cited was the Chiefs\u2019 \u201cconsistency\u201d through the years.\u00a0He also noted that they are playing good \u201ccomplementary football.\u201d<\/p>\n
They have been frequent visitors to the red zone this season.<\/p>\n
The Chiefs have the third-highest conversion rate on the fifth-most red zone trips,\u00a0per Pro Football Reference. The Broncos have frequently been lauded for having many, if not all, of the components Payton mentioned for KC.<\/p>\n
Putting it all together for a full 60 minutes is their next challenge. A win in Week 11 could vault Payton and the Broncos into another stratosphere mentally.<\/p>\n
To get it, they must properly address the issues they have encountered early in games.<\/p>\n
Payton and the Broncos are 8-2, atop the AFC West standings, and tied for the best record in the\u00a0NFL\u00a0heading into the Chiefs game. The head coach met with the media on Wednesday, and he spoke highly about the team\u2019s ability to emerge victorious in tight contests.<\/p>\n
The Broncos are 6-2 in one-score games this season, and their two losses came in Weeks 2 and 3, against the\u00a0Indianapolis Colts\u00a0and\u00a0Los Angeles Chargers, respectively.<\/p>\n
However, presented with a question regarding the Broncos\u2019 slow starts, Payton was frank.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s our jobs to, offensively, put ourselves in a position of starting faster. And when I discussed this after the game, there aren\u2019t many times when a game\u2019s over \u2013 when you win, even \u2013 where you\u2019re fully satisfied. There\u2019s something bugging you. There\u2019s something. And certainly, getting that balance and the time of possession, also to help our defense. And so, I like that this year we\u2019re doing better in these one-score games,\u201d Payton said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you gained some confidence. And if you tried to pick when did that turn, you might look at\u00a0Philly. But to go where we want to go, there has to be improvement. And certainly we understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Broncos enter this game riding a seven-game win streak. The Chiefs lost in their last outing against the\u00a0Buffalo Bills before their bye in Week 10.<\/p>\n
For the\u00a0Browns, it is a mostly hopeless situation at this point, no matter what decision the team makes next at quarterback. They want to keep\u00a0Dillon Gabriel\u00a0going as the starter, despite the fact that his struggles seem to be getting worse with each start, not better. He has completed only 58.6% of his passes and is averaging just 170.0 yards passing per game, for a rating of 80.4.<\/p>\n
At Pro Football Focus, Gabriel has notched a grade of 49.9, which ranks 37th out of 37 graded quarterbacks this season.<\/p>\n
The choice, then, is to stick with Gabriel and continue to watch his conservative yet inefficient style, or to pull the plug on him and essentially admit that the five games with him at the helm were a wasteful experiment. Making matters more untenable for the Browns is that QB2\u00a0Shedeur Sanders\u00a0is in the background, and there has been a rising call for him to get a shot at the job.<\/p>\n
That public pressure has been there for much of the season, but has gotten more intense and more widespread\u2013you\u2019d be hard-pressed to find a talking head on the national sports scene who has not taken a swipe at the Browns for their mismanagement of the quarterbacking situation and their unwarranted devotion to Gabriel.<\/p>\n
Publicly, the Browns remain committed to starting Gabriel. Coach Kevin Stefanski was asked, as he always is, about the possibility of playing Sanders this week, and he demurred as he always does. He\u2019s sticking with Gabriel.<\/p>\n
If Browns fans are hoping that, behind the scenes, there is a shift going on that could result in Gabriel finally being benched and Sanders being elevated to starter, well they got some bad news from ESPN league insider Jeremy Fowler.<\/p>\n
He wrote on Wednesday: \u201cComing out of the Week 9 bye, the Browns\u2019 plan was to give Dillon Gabriel\u00a0a fairly long runway of games to evaluate what they have in him. But as we see with young quarterbacks and teams in transition all the time, those plans can change.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe public pressure in Cleveland is mounting. But I simply haven\u2019t sensed that the Browns have been eager to turn to Shedeur Sanders.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so we can expect to see more Gabriel in the future. Certainly, he will be on the field in Week 11 against the\u00a0Ravens, a team that has won three straight and is finally getting its defense together\u2013Baltimore has held four straight foes below 20 points.<\/p>\n
It will take a better overall effort offensively, not just from Gabriel, to hang with the Ravens,\u00a0Stefanski said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s our job as coaches and certainly the players to go be productive on offense,\u201d Stefanski said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s very, I understand that a lot of the focus goes to the quarterback position, but I look at it also globally and try to look at ways that we can improve across the board, whether it\u2019s how we\u2019re designing some of those plays, who were putting in those spots in some of those plays. I think that\u2019s as big a part of it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The\u00a0Denver Broncos\u00a0rank fourth in fourth-quarter points per game through 10 weeks this season. However, Broncos head coach\u00a0Sean Payton\u00a0is concerned with how his team has performed during the other three frames in games,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hot-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t