Broncos had a key task in AFC Championship Game, as Payton saw it — and they failed

The Broncos had a path to victory in the AFC Championship Game last January — even without Bo Nix at quarterback. But it was a narrow one.

It involved the game against the New England Patriots being low-scoring in nature; without Nix and with Jarrett Stidham making his first start in two years, the team was unlikely to win if the game got into the 30s — as the previous week’s divisional-round game against the Buffalo Bills did.

But Payton also knew this: Containing the Patriots meant keeping quarterback Drake Maye in the pocket — and not letting him beat them with his legs.

That was a point Payton made to his team at its Wednesday meeting that week, as ESPN’s Seth Wickersham reported in an extensive piece about the Broncos’ preparations for the AFC Championship Game. Four days prior to what would be a 10-7 defeat to New England in the AFC Championship Game, Payton emphasized that he wanted sacks and for the elusive Maye to stay in the pocket.

“When these sacks have taken place, the ball’s coming out,” Payton told his team. “If this guy’s stepping up and rushing for 20 yards, we’re not gonna win this game. That’s just a fact.

“I’m talking to everyone in the room. Players and coaches: He can’t beat us with his feet.”

And in the end, Maye did exactly what Payton hoped his side could prevent what the coach understood would be fatal for its hopes.

BRONCOS DEFENSE MOSTLY DID ITS JOB THAT DAY

Vance Joseph’s defense kept the Patriots in neutral for most of the afternoon. The second-half snowstorm aided the Broncos’ cause in that regard, but even before the foul weather hit, New England’s offense went almost nowhere, mustering a mere 206 yards.

Considering that no team since the 1986 New York Giants had ever won a conference-championship game with fewer than 210 total yards — yielding a losing streak of nine for teams with such a statistical line in the postseason’s penultimate round — the Broncos ought to have been in good shape.

But there were two problems.

One was how the Patriots got those 206 yards. One-hundred and forty-one of them came on 38 rushing attempts. And relevant to Payton’s point about Maye was the fact that the athletic, elusive quarterback had 65 of those 141 yards, good for the third-highest total of his career.

Twenty-eight of them came on a single third-quarter, third-and-9 sprint that set up what turned out to be the Patriots’ game-winning field goal. Another six came when Maye ran for the Patriots’ only touchdown. And seven more came when Maye took off around left end, eluded Jonah Elliss and made it to the sideline on third-and-6 for a successful conversion that ended the competitive phase of the contest and left only kneeldowns from there.

The other problem was that the Broncos offense gained just 181 yards and frittered away two prime scoring chances on a failed fourth-down attempt in the second quarter and a blocked field-goal attempt in the fourth. And the offense gift-wrapped New England’s only touchdown, which came on a short field after Jarrett Stidham’s fateful push pass that was ruled a fumble upon instant-replay review.

Per the ESPN report, Payton regretted the third-and-4 pass call, which ended in Elijah Ponder recovering the ball at the Denver 12-yard line.

“I let him down,” Payton said.

But at the same time, Payton knew what his team had to stop most. It didn’t, and Maye’s runs ended up helping to seal Denver’s fate.