10 Things We Learned from Broncos' Win Over Raiders

The Denver Broncos again snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in Thursday's primetime contest against the Las Vegas Raiders, escaping with a 10-7 conquest at Empower Field at Mile High -- their seventh straight win and eighth overall on the year.

Here's what we learned about the Broncos' Week 10 affair:

The Positives...

It's hard to win in this league. The Broncos are 8-2, they're leading the AFC West and tied for the best record in the conference. It was a tough, short turnaround after Houston, and the team was obviously gassed. Yet they found a way, again, to overcome. And that's what matters: stacking as many victories as humanly possible.

... End Here

With those excuses and superlatives out of the way, this objectively was a disappointing showing, at least on the offensive side. In certain moments this felt more like a preseason game than a November matchup of division rivals -- on Thursday Night Football at home, to boot. And some of the issues we're seeing from both the players and the coaches have persisted since August.

Payton Problem

Broncos head coach Sean Payton's playcalling was substandard. The field-position starts were poor, but nothing explains away 37 pass attempts for Bo Nix to only 17 combined runs between JK Dobbins and RJ Harvey, the former of whom averaged a healthy 4.1 yards per carry. Been said before: Payton believes he's the smartest person in the room and has this annoying tendency to outsmart himself in the most puzzling ways ever. In doing so, he tries his hardest to make Nix a "thing" -- that thing being Drew Brees.

Nix Problem

That aside, Nix turned in one of his poorest games from statistical and eye-test standpoints. He appeared jittery and uncomfortable in the pocket all night, with those pesky feet failing to set on many of his throws. He still misses too many easy completions and even the ones he makes can seem like a struggle for the pass-catcher. You can't criticize Payton and the Broncos offense without criticizing Nix for this performance.