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Jeff Legwold, ESPN Senior Writer
DENVER — In the end, even a coach with a résumé as long as Sean Payton has as an NFL head coach could only voice a quick sigh in the aftermath of the Denver Broncos‘ wild 41-32 win over the Cleveland Browns Monday night in Empower Field at Mile High.
“Holy cow,” Payton said as he stepped to the podium.
Payton had just seen his Broncos win a game despite surrendering 497 yards passing and four touchdowns to Browns quarterback Jameis Winston to go with 235 yards receiving from former Broncos’ first-round pick Jerry Jeudy as Cleveland finished with a staggering 552 yards of offense overall. But in the swirl the Broncos’ defense also produced three interceptions — two returned for touchdowns — and Denver moved to 8-5 to keep itself in the No. 7 spot in the AFC’s playoff race.
“Some games go in a direction you think they’re going to go, obviously that game went in a much different direction, we made enough plays to win,” Payton said. ” … We got that next win and that was most important. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but we were able to finish.”
Said Broncos rookie quarterback Bo Nix: “Really it’s just going on to that next drive, not worrying about the score, not worrying about what happened before. … We just had to put everything together as best as possible and found a way to win a game … a game like you literally have got to score more points, no matter how it happens.”
Jeudy’s receiving total was the most the Broncos had given up in franchise history. Winston’s passing total was the second highest by an opposing quarterback against the Broncos behind only Tony Romo’s 506 yards passing in 2013.
The Broncos had leads of 21-10 and 28-17 in the second half only to see the Browns take a 32-31 lead with 8 minutes, 57 seconds left in the game on Winston’s 5-yard scoring pass to Nick Chubb — Winston’s fourth touchdown pass of the game.
But the Broncos drove 61 yards in 11 plays on their next possession, including two third-down conversions, for a 34-32 lead after a 27-yard field goal by Wil Lutz. The Broncos finally stopped the roller coaster when cornerback Ja’Quan McMillian intercepted Winston on the next possession and returned it 44 yards for a touchdown (outside linebacker Nik Bonitto had returned an interception 71 yards for a score earlier in the game).
“Stuff got ugly on the sideline a little bit … we just had to get everybody together,” safety P.J. Locke said. “We said, ‘We’re being tested, there’s going to be games like this, we’re being tested right now,’ but we pulled it out, we just pulled it out. It was crazy … we had the ultimate faith … JMac came up with a great play.”
Said Payton: “Big play, game was full of them, but that was significant. Just a different game, we’ve got to learn from it. We’re at that time here in December when all of these things matter, we have to learn from it.”
Broncos linebacker Cody Barton intercepted Winston in the end zone with 44 seconds left to end the Browns’ last-gasp drive. The win keeps the Broncos on track in the AFC playoff race and also improves their AFC record to 4-4, a potentially important tiebreaker in the weeks to come.
The Broncos have a bye in the upcoming week and return to face the Indianapolis Colts (6-7), Dec. 15, in Denver. It’s the first time the Broncos have been at least three games over .500 this late in a season since 2016, the first year of the current playoff drought.
The Broncos have not been in a playoff game since their Super Bowl 50 win to finish the 2015 season.
“Obviously, when we go back and look at that tape defensively there’s going to be a lot of things we would have done differently,” Payton said. ” … And yet we had two interceptions for a touchdown, another interception. I told them in the locker room it wasn’t pretty, but in the end we did what we had to do especially late. … I’m proud the way we fought and we got that next win.”
