Payton: Raiders played a good game, ‘but they lost’

Hahahahahahahahaha.

Sean Payton finally seems to get the Broncos-Raiders rivalry.

After the win, Payton was on film sprinting across the field celebrating with some aggressive fist-pumping.

Finally.

In fact, he admitted as much, saying this team has “exorcised the demons” for the past teams.

“Hadn’t beaten the Raiders in how long? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. We beat them twice this year,” he said, adding that “obviously” division games matter. “Listen, the appreciation for beating the Raiders… It’s a storied franchise, just like we are. That is what makes this division unique. I’m getting to appreciate that.”

Even better was how the Broncos did it. On a day where neither offense or defense played its best, it still played good enough to beat a division rival.

That says something about the progress of this team.

Payton pointed out that elite teams are “really ready” for 13 or 14 of their 17 matchups.

“The ones that are not, they still find a way to win. They may lose a few, but they find a way still,” Patyon said, adding that this year’s Broncos team has been able to do that — find a way to win regardless of how well they are playing.

“I said to them today, our team a year ago doesn’t win this game. But this team did. You build some grit. We won the turnover battle again. We were the better team today. We didn’t always play like it, but we’ll get those things cleaned up,” Payton said, refusing to elaborate on last year’s team. “I’m just talking about what I see with the mental toughness, the grit, the fortitude, how they work. This is an entirely different team from a year ago. That’s no discredit to last year’s team. It just is what it is.”

Obviously it is a discredit to last year’s team (most likely it’s QB) but he’s not wrong.

The Raiders made it tough on the Broncos, and Payton and the offense struggled to move down the field, run the ball, get some completions.

But by the second half, Bo Nix found Courtland Sutton for some key first downs and two unbelievable touchdowns to put Denver in the driver’s seat.

“I don’t like when they can dictate relative to what we do. …We really felt we had some matchup advantages. We took advantage of ‘em. Courtland played tremendous,” Payton said, before a second zinger. “Credit Vegas. They came out and had some fire about ‘em. But they lost.”

But. They. Lost.

Feels so good to write that.

Payton believed a key play was the short pass to Marvin Mims Jr. on 3rd-and-5 who took it to the two, setting up Sutton’s second TD, which gave the Broncos some breathing room at 26-16.

“The big play I thought was Mims’ third down in the backfield. He was in the pistol, a quick count, we got pressure. [Nix] dumped it to Mims. There was no one on him. That was a really big play in the game,” Payton said. “It’s not a game where you’re going to throw for 72%. You just got to hit some big plays. We made enough of ‘em.”

So much credit goes to the quarterback for those plays, but he’ll be the first to credit the defense and Brandon Jones for an interception that gave them the ball inside the red zone.

“Honestly, the biggest thing was the interception got us the short field and we were able to capitalize on it,” Nix said. “That was really kind of what sparked us, was the pick.”

Though the defense also struggled early to contain Gardner Minshew, the defense ultimately dialed in and kept the Raiders offense from pulling away.

“Our defense played really well again from start to finish,” Nix said. “They were put on the field a lot at the end of the game, had to make some key stops. They did. So it was a complete team win. Very resilient from our guys.”

Nix added that even when the offense was scoring field goals, it was sustaining drives and putting up points. He never worried about not winning.

“But just never lost that edge. We never lost the faith on the sideline,” he added. “Always kind of figured we were going to find a way to win. That’s what marks a good team.”

It’s also what marks a great quarterback — providing that confidence in 10 other players on the field and 52 others on the sideline. Not to mention the 53 on the opposite side of the field.

Everyone BOlieves.