Sean Payton stopped the question cold.

In November 2023, the Broncos had won five straight and just polished off a bully-ball win against Cleveland to get above .500 for the first time all season.

At 6-5, they had legitimate playoff aspirations. Quarterback Russell Wilson had 17 touchdowns and no picks in the red zone.

When a question about that performance came the coach’s way, he did not let it stand.

“Let’s back up a second,” Payton said then. “We haven’t been good in the red zone. We were good yesterday, but we haven’t been. We were near the bottom third in the league as a unit. Yesterday we were better. As it pertains to Russell, he’s measured just like our offense.”

Translation: Individual stats don’t matter. Production does. If the offense is bad in the red zone, the quarterback is bad in the red zone.

The 17-0 TD-INT ratio didn’t capture the sacks and penalties that beset the Broncos offense. It didn’t mask, in Payton’s eyes, that Denver was among the league’s worst offenses on goal-to-go situations.

It certainly did not convince Payton that Wilson was the guy to get Denver where it wanted to go long-term.

After Wilson’s December benching and the ensuing $85 million divorce, Payton outlined a long list of improvements the Broncos offense needed to make in 2024. Improvements they would definitely make, in his mind. Some systemic, some only thinly veiled as things the next quarterback — eventually first-round pick Bo Nix — would do better than Wilson. Be better in the red zone. Take fewer sacks. Play in rhythm rather than off schedule. Run the ball with more efficiency.

One game doesn’t provide enough data to do anything more than gather an early impression of the progress or lack thereof in those departments.

Still, the very early returns indicate the Broncos have a long way to go in most of these areas and risk having to rely heavily — perhaps too heavily — on Nix in the search for further offensive progress.Red zone woes

Payton has a truism he uses regularly about football teams. If you’re good on the road, good at home, good in bad weather or good in prime time, that isn’t about anything special in those departments. It’s probably because you’re a good team.

A similar notion applies in the red zone. If you’re good on offense, you’re probably good in the red zone.

The Broncos in 2023 were not. But their issues still manifested dramatically. Denver overall finished 19th in red zone touchdown rate but was 30th in goal-to-go touchdown rate.

“Awful,” Payton surmised this summer. “… We’ve got to do a better job as coaches. We were talking about first-and-goal inside the 9. We’ve got to do a much better job, and we will.”

This year did not start on a promising note.

Denver’s first possession of the year came on the Seattle 20-yard line. Three-and-out. Field goal.

Overall on the day, the Broncos went 1 of 4 in the red zone and 1 of 2 in goal-to-go situations.

The sample size remains too small to assume trends, but similar issues beset Denver. A false-start penalty on Nix. A 9-yard run by Javonte Williams but then just 2 net yards on the ensuing three carries. No conversions on three third-down tries.

“We always talk about, that’s a four-point play,” tight end Adam Trautman said of red zone third downs. “If you don’t convert the third down, you’re kicking a field goal. If you do, it’s first-and-goal and hopefully you’re scoring a touchdown.”

The only thing worse than a field goal attempt is turning the ball over, and Nix did that, too, with an interception on an under-thrown to Courtland Sutton.

“I think just, kind of like the rest of the field, you’ve got to do well on first and second down in the red zone,” said Nix, who completed 3 of 6 passes for 13 yards in the red zone last Sunday. “Cut down your third-and-manageables, third and shorts. And then when they’re there in the red zone, you just have to hit them. Sometimes it’s running it in, sometimes it’s making a play, it’s extending plays, and sometimes you get a good schemed-up pass and you hit it in the end zone.

“Those are the things we’re going to continue to work on because, at the end of the day, teams that are separated are those that score in the red zone.”

Sack-free Sundays

One area that did show up right away last week is Nix’s mobility.

He hit 20.05 mph on a fourth-quarter scramble, according to Next Gen Stats, which was the fastest non-wide receiver offensive mark of Week 1 in the NFL.

Despite a 37% pressure rate, Nix took two sacks on a whopping 49 drop-backs against Seattle, and each of them came outside the pocket. One was for no loss and the other was entirely avoidable when Nix should have thrown the ball out of bounds instead of stepping out well behind the line of scrimmage. That means Nix didn’t get sacked in the pocket in his first outing, though he and the Broncos will be hard-pressed to replicate that Sunday against Pittsburgh’s dynamic pass rush.

Of course, Payton would prefer the sack numbers be suppressed because the ball is out quickly and distributed to playmakers. Nix’s time-to-throw Sunday was 2.84 seconds, the No. 23 time among teams in Week 1. Wilson averaged 3.06 in 2023 for Denver, the second-longest mark in the NFL.

Coincidentally, the only one who took longer on average was Justin Fields, who now shares a quarterback room with Wilson.

Wilson was sacked 100 times in 30 starts with the Broncos. His sack rate declined last year under Payton, but only marginally from 9.9% in 2022 to 9.2% last year.

Payton and Denver went looking for the opposite in the draft. Virtually every time Payton talked this offseason, he emphasized the need for Denver to take fewer sacks and regularly restated his belief that sacks are typically more on the quarterback than on the offensive line or the protection in general.

He found what he was looking for in Nix at Oregon.

“You saw in every game he played a dirty pocket, a quick plant step, and ball out accurately,” Payton said. “For some guys, that’s hard to do. They need a full stride in a clean pocket. In each game, whether it was climb up, escape right, escape left or just move a little and release it. It served him well relative to the sack numbers. He became a tough sack because the ball is out.”

Nix did some of that in his debut, though he also started getting all the way out of the pocket to either extend plays or take off running.

The possibilities here, though, are promising. If Nix fulfills his reputation of being a quick facilitator and combines that with the mobility and speed he’s already showing, he could indeed end up being one of the tougher quarterbacks in football to sack.

Feel the rhythm

Nix played mostly in rhythm during his two preseason appearances but not so much Sunday at Seattle. He acknowledged the game moved faster than it did in August.

After generating multiple first downs and points on six of seven preseason possessions, Nix and the Broncos went three-and-out seven times against the Seahawks.

“There was one play in particular where I think we had a chance at a big play, and he just had the wrong footwork,” offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi said. “He was a little ahead of the throw, which caused it to look very inaccurate. Just a couple of little details like that and a couple of throws. The two interceptions, he kind of forced them in there.”

Nix at times looked rushed, but he’s also got to deliver the ball in a more timely manner.

“I think it’s all being on the same page and knowing where those wide receivers are going to be,” Nix said. “Then at the same time, you have to know where the defense is going to be. It’s kind of a mix-and-match. … Throw with anticipation, but sometimes the anticipation can get you in trouble.”

Rhythm, timing and design are important for every offense, but those are gospel for Payton’s scheme. It’s been a strength of Nix’s in college and through training camp, and Lombardi said he thinks the rookie will progress quickly.

“The thing I like the most is when we came in on Monday and watched the film before anything was said, he knew,” the coordinator said.

“He had answers for everything. You could see that there’s going to be growth from when he makes mistakes.”

Run the ball

This is perhaps the area where the Broncos most have to help Nix.

That’s everybody from the offensive line to the running backs and tight ends, but most critically Payton.

The Broncos averaged 5.1 yards per carry on their first nine rushing attempts Sunday and then 3.3 on their final 16. More than a third of their 99 yards came from Nix in scramble situations.

But the ground game was going awry long before the Broncos were forced to chase a two-score deficit.

Denver led at halftime Sunday but already had 27 dropbacks to 13 rush attempts.

By the end, Nix had dropped back 49 times compared to just 20 rush attempts. Even then, two of the runs were actually lateral passes, so Nix only handed off or pitched the ball 18 times in 69 offensive snaps.

That, put simply, is not a recipe for success with almost any quarterback. It most certainly is not when you’ve got a rookie trying to work through the learning curve, the struggles and all the challenges that come with learning the game at its highest level.

“I would say that nobody on offense, including the coaches, had a great day on Sunday,” Lombardi said. “I think everyone getting a little bit better is going to help (Nix) the most.”