A Jets loss (in a game where they put up a ton of points!)

A Cowboys loss

A Colts loss

The Broncos have now won 15 one-possession regular-season games in a row, tied with the 2008-09 Colts led by Peyton Manning for the longest streak in NFL history.

Bo Nix has actually won 16 consecutive one-possession games: The Broncos beat the Bills 33-30 in overtime last year in the playoffs, but Nix got injured at some point late in that game and missed the ensuing AFC Championship game, which the Broncos lost 10-7 with Jarrett Stidham at QB.

Five of those games have featured double-digit second-half comebacks from the Broncos. They came back from a 16-0 deficit against the Rams earlier this year, scored an NFL-record 33 fourth-quarter points to beat the Giants 33-32 on a last-second field goal last year, came back from a 13-3 fourth-quarter deficit against the Jaguars, scored 18 straight fourth-quarter points to beat the Eagles last year, and came back to beat the Chiefs on Sunday night.

My editor has hooked me to a series of powerful electrodes that will shock me with a voltage of electricity that will leave me incapacitated for hours if I keep making every sporting event about the 2026 NBA champion New York Knicks, but I can’t help myself:

Reminds me of another orange-and-blue Nix team that kept making improbable double-digit fourth-quarter comebacks!

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Wow, that was painful! Anyway.

Of course, there’s one question you have to ask about a team like the Broncos: Why are they always coming back from massive late deficits? (You don’t need to ask this about the Knicks. Don’t worry about it.)

With Denver, the answer seems clear: The offense is not great.

Denver ranks 22nd in total points and 28th in yards per play. Nix is 23rd in passer rating, 25th in QBR, 28th in yards per attempt, and 29th in success rate. He is remarkably conservative, averaging just 3.5 completed air yards per attempt; only Tyler Huntley and Jalon Daniels — both backups — are below him. In the NFL’s expected completion above expectation stat, only Daniels and Jameis Winston are worse than Nix.

You’re telling me Denver has a questionable QB who can’t throw the ball very far and somehow gets credit for his defense-led squad making an improbable string of close wins and late comebacks? More like Te-Bow Nix!

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Oh, wow, I guess my editor has that thing rigged up for multiple purposes. It’s getting more and more painful!

I want to hate, but the Broncos have now beaten the Rams, Seahawks, and Chiefs, all by one possession. Of course, the fact that the Broncos are even close to a bunch of great teams means they’re probably great.

But alas, I am a hater and a nerd: I must spend the entire season waiting for the laws of regression to show up, and for Denver’s remarkable luck to finally run out.

Among quarterbacks with at least 50 pass attempts in 2026, Lamar Jackson leads all players in … well, everything: passer rating, QBR, yards per attempt, adjusted net yards per attempt, success rate, completion percentage over expectation, you name it, and that’s all without factoring in his talent as a runner.

Unfortunately … this keeps happening. This thumb injury will be the sixth that has caused him to miss time in the last six seasons: He had a season-ending ankle injury in 2021, a season-ending knee injury in 2022, a hamstring injury and a tailbone injury that caused him to miss time last year, and an ankle injury and this thumb injury this year.

Sunday was just the second time a team has had to play its emergency third-string QB since the NFL re-instituted a special roster rule for third-string quarterbacks in 2023; a team can have a 49th player on the 48-man game day roster if that player is a third-string QB, but he can only be used in case of a documented injury to the first two players. The rule was put in place in response to the NFC Championship game where the 49ers had to leave Brock Purdy in the game with an injury. The last time it happened was in October 2024, when the Browns had to play Jameis Winston after injuries to Deshaun Watson and Dorian Thompson-Robinson.

That makes just two instances out of 1,900 team games since the start of the 2023 season. Having two quarterbacks injured in the same game is about a 1-in-1,000 scenario.

The Ravens almost didn’t have a third-string QB; in past years they’ve carried just two quarterbacks. However, Fagnano was impressive in preseason — he literally led all quarterbacks in preseason passing stats — and made the roster, apparently so other teams wouldn’t poach him.

Fagnano began his college career as a walk-on at Maine, an FCS school, which means schools at the second tier of college football generally weren’t interested in giving him a scholarship. He spent seven years in college, eventually transferring up to UConn. (My main memory of his college career is that I talked on Split Zone Duo about how he started the season by throwing 25 touchdowns without throwing an interception, and then in the next game he threw an interception.)

Fagnano was signed in the offseason alongside Vanderbilt standout Diego Pavia, which means there was an alternate timeline where Pavia took the field on Sunday.

The Ravens might actually have to end up starting Fagnano. They play again on Thursday Night Football, and Huntley probably won’t be ready, since turf toe typically isn’t a three-day injury. However …

… Fagnano himself says that he isn’t 100 percent. I guess the Ravens could turn to practice squad QB Skylar Thompson or sign someone off the street, but either way they’re going to be starting somebody bad, with just a couple of days of practice.

Since being drafted, Jackson has started 111 of the Ravens’ 141 games. (I’m counting today’s game as one he didn’t start, which is technically inaccurate but whatever.) They are 79-32 in the games he starts (71.1% win percentage) and 11-19 (36.7 percent) in the games he doesn’t.

Jackson’s injuries account for a lot of lost Ravens seasons. In 2021, they were 8-4 when Jackson got injured; they lost every remaining game and missed the playoffs. In 2022, they again went 8-4 with Jackson as a starter, but made the playoffs and lost with Huntley as starter. Last year, they went 0-2 with Cooper Rush at QB and missed the playoffs by one game. This year, they’re 3-1 with Jackson at QB and 1-3 without him; I wouldn’t expect them to have any shot at the playoffs without him.

It always falls apart when Lamar Jackson falls apart. This year, though, they’re not dying by slow drip; they just had the whole thing disintegrate in a matter of minutes.

The last time a team won a game with zero passing yards was in 1974, when the Bills beat the Jets 16-12 in a game with 40 mph winds. Joe Namath went 2-for-18 with three interceptions in the loss; the Bills smartly stopped passing and handed the ball off to O.J. Simpson. (That’s right — the beloved actor from the Naked Gun franchise used to play football!) “Passes did not work,” The New York Times wrote. “The goalposts wobbled … Center snaps for punts and placement kicks went awry … a new American flag became frayed at the ends.” Someone uploaded footage from that game a few years ago; the wind literally caused some of Namath’s passes to bend in the air:

Hypothetically, the same was true on Sunday. There was a heavy rainstorm that made handling the ball difficult and coated the Bucs’ crisp white uniforms in a layer of brown mud. The Falcons, too, struggled to pass the ball, with Michael Penix throwing four interceptions. (Yes, that’s four passes that the Falcons threw to the Buccaneers and zero passes that the Buccaneers threw to the Buccaneers.)

Mayfield clearly struggled handling the ball in the slop, fumbling it three times. (Yes, that’s three fumbles and zero pass completions.)

But last week, the Buccaneers played in a totally normal weather game — 65 degrees with clear skies in Charlotte, basically perfect — and had 64 passing yards and 258 rushing yards.

According to ESPN, 92 percent of Tampa Bay’s plays on Sunday were designed runs, the second-highest percentage of any team in the last 20 seasons. The rest of the list checks out: #1 was a 2021 Patriots-Bills game played in howling winds where Mac Jones went 2-for-3 passing; #3 was a Tim Tebow Broncos game.

But also in that top five … the Buccaneers game last week! The Bucs ran it 81 percent of the time last week simply because it worked!

It’s possible Mayfield simply isn’t comfortable throwing the ball as he returns from a thumb injury, like Lamar Jackson’s. Last week he played in a special reinforced glove, designed with help from the Tampa Bay Rays. (I personally think part of the reason the Rays lost the World Series is because somebody on staff was busy making a glove for Baker Mayfield instead of focusing on baseball.) But Mayfield was gloveless on Sunday and still didn’t throw.

The Bucs have the #3 defense in DVOA. They’ve invested in their offensive line, with two first-round picks (Tristan Wirfs and Graham Barton) and two second-rounders (Cody Mauch and Luke Goedeke.)

And Sunday, their two running backs, Bucky Irving and Kenneth Gainwell, both had career highs. Irving had 170 yards and Gainwell had 140; it was the first game in NFL history where a team had two running backs who each had 25 carries for 125 yards.

It might seem bad that the Buccaneers signed Baker Mayfield to a three-year, $165 million contract only to realize their best form is running the ball 100 times per game. But thankfully, Mayfield is probably the quarterback most excited about the premise of being exclusively used as a downfield blocker. He actually blocked Atlanta defensive back Jessie Bates clean off the field on one play:

It had been more than 50 years since an NFL team had a game like this. But part of me wouldn’t be surprised if they just do it again next week.