Renck: Are Broncos NFL’s CU Buffs? Not quite ready for prime time? They can earn trust vs. Ravens

Remember Sunday to turn the clock back and cross your fingers the Broncos don’t set the season back years.

The Broncos boast a 5-3 record and remain viewed with suspicion.

They are the NFL’s CU Buffs: entertaining, improving, but not ready for prime time. That is the opinion of wise guys and multiple national media outlets.

And, truth is, the Broncos have not earned our trust. Not yet anyway. That will come when they make the playoffs, a prediction I am doubling down on. Facing the Baltimore Ravens, however, offers a chance to immediately change the narrative, to prove they are more than a promising young team that took advantage of the feeble NFC South.

Baltimore is to the Broncos what Nebraska was to CU. Except way better. The Huskers clobbered the Buffs. It did not prevent them from reaching their goals, but it exposed CU, showing the ground left to cover in a rebuild.

As winter made a flirtatious appearance Wednesday, it brought a reminder that the Broncos stand on a similar slippery slope. A nationwide audience – that extends beyond Amazon’s Thursday reach – will get its first look at the Broncos. They are the featured game on CBS. To hear Jim Nantz the last few years, Broncos Country had to watch The Masters.

The Broncos have played in multiple games like this since 2016, and walked away with toilet paper stuck to their shoe and urine running down their legs.

They collapsed against the injury-riddled Giants in prime time in 2017, triggering an eight-game slide. They gagged against Cleveland under the lights late in 2018. They choked against the Bengals in 2021. They left a nation with bleeding pupils in a Thursday overtime loss to the Colts two years ago and who can forget the 2023 performance against the Patriots when Rudolph was hardly the only one lit on Christmas Eve?

Sunday provides a platform to put bad luck and poor decisions in the rearview. Win – heck, come close – and affirmation will arrive in the form of 150-point Helvetica bold headlines. Lose badly and it will raise questions about how good the Broncos were in the first place.

A subtle difference surfaced Wednesday that was encouraging. The Broncos used to refer to this spot as a challenge. The current players called it an opportunity, signaling a shift in mindset under coach Sean Payton.

It features Baltimore’s No. 1 ranked offense vs. the Broncos’ No. 3 defense.

“On a big stage like this, obviously we don’t look for validation from anybody, but as far as defensively this is the time for us to show who we are and why we are one of the best,” said edge rusher Nik Bonitto, who carries a six-game sack streak into the matchup. “We are definitely looking forward to this.”

Payton and his staff inject confidence through preparation and the game plan. The days of playing the victim, of making excuses, are over. Leave that to the Panthers and any team that employs Nathaniel Hackett.

“I think that a lot of people write us off based upon the personnel that we have on our team, and that’s completely fine. We love that. We love going into these games being underdogs,” receiver Courtland Sutton said. “We know that if we go out there and perform the way we know how, we feel like we can compete with anybody.”

The Broncos have won five of their last six games, and three straight on the road. And yet the 5-3 Ravens are 9.5-point favorites, the largest spread in the league this week.

“The Ravens are probably in the top two teams in the league. And the Broncos need to prove it against better (or the best) teams,” said Jay Kornegay, executive vice president of sports and race at the SuperBook in Las Vegas. “And the Ravens are a little hot after last week (losing to Cleveland).”

The Broncos own the fifth seed in the AFC playoffs at the halfway point. Looking at this week’s media power rankings, they range from 11th to 23rd. The Ringer said of the Broncos: “Disregard all results against the Panthers. Where is all this offense when Denver plays against real teams?”

Locally, the Broncos have stirred up optimism because Bo Nix looks like a franchise quarterback and the defense takes every yard personally. Nix is not Lamar Jackson. No quarterback has run the football with his electricity. But Nix can run faster than any quarterback in Broncos history – sorry Tim Tebow. He continues to show progress in the pocket and knows how to protect the football.

Upsets start with eliminating turnovers and taking the fight to the favorite, similar to what the Broncos did at Tampa Bay. They end with making an opponent one dimensional, so forcing Jackson to beat them through the air, not with he and Derrick Henry operating as a NASCAR with mudflaps.

So, what is it about the Broncos that gives them no benefit of the doubt, that they are somewhere where they don’t belong, namely in a big game?

It starts with the eight-year playoff drought. And it ends with who they have beaten on a soft schedule. But, I am going to call it: the Broncos are going to win two of the next three games, changing the perception of this team and this season.

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