Courtland Sutton Climbs Broncos' Record Books With Week 1 Performance

A 2018 second-round pick out of SMU, Sutton became a starter late in his rookie season. He spent his rookie training camp learning from the late Demaryius Thomas and Sanders, an education that has served him well as an eighth-year pro.

The Touchdown

With 11 seconds left in the second quarter, the Broncos were trailing the Titans 6-3. Nix dropped back to pass, pump-faked, and hit Sutton on the 22-yard touchdown that put him in the top 10 all time, tied with Decker, of course.

Complementary Football

After the game, Nix recapped the Broncos' big touchdown to end the first half of action, a score that came immediately after Marvin Mims Jr. returned a punt 17 yards to the Titans' 38-yard line. The next play was a pass-interference penalty on Tennessee (a Sutton target), followed by Nix hitting him for six.

"That’s exactly how you want to draw it up. If you have to give them the ball back with just under a minute, and we got the ball back, it was just a few plays," Nix said post-game. "A few plays and then Courtland with the big touchdown grab. Just an easy play, two-high, four [verticals]. He made a good move on the corner, and got inside, and just made a great catch. Once I saw him go up in the air for it, I knew he was going to come down with it. That’s good confidence. That’s what you want to see."

That scoring drive was a wham-bam sequence that was greatly helped by the Broncos' defense stuffing the Titans on their goal-line, punctuated by a Jonathon Cooper sack on rookie quarterback Cam Ward that narrowly avoided a safety. Complementary football, indeed.

A Shaky Start for Nix

Overall, Nix and the Broncos' offense will likely see plenty of missed opportunities upon their review of the film. The rust fell off in chunks for Nix and company, but the offense still did its part to ensure that the Broncos' defensive dominance wasn't squandered.

Nix was uncharacteristically responsible for three turnovers on the day: two interceptions and a lost fumble. Sean Payton's takeaway on Nix's first game of the season?

“Well, we won, that’s the first thing," Payton said post-game. "I thought he hung in there. He battled. Made some critical plays first in the second half, and so obviously he’ll be disappointed with the turnovers, but it was a gutsy performance."

Payton emphasized the Week-1 nature of the game and highlighted Nix's resilience.

"It is pretty usual Week 1; a lot of different looks maybe that you hadn’t seen normally or scouted normally for relative to their coverages," Payton said of Nix. "Overall, his job is to lead us to score. I thought he played really well in the second half, and we won the game.”

Mission Accomplished

Congratulations to Sutton for climbing the Broncos' record books, and to Payton and company for notching his first Week-1 win since coming to Denver as head coach in 2023. Payton wanted to start the 2025 season off much faster than last year, and by that, he meant by winning.

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Mission accomplished, even if it wasn't always pretty. Next up, the Broncos travel to Lucas Oil Stadium to face the 1-0 Indianapolis Colts.