Broncos def. Vikings on SNF: Recap & analysis (2024)

The Denver Broncos are riding high after a dramatic 21-20 win on “Sunday Night Football” against the Minnesota Vikings. Here’s what you need to know:

• Down 20-15 with 3:17 remaining, the Broncos needed a touchdown to take the lead. Denver quarterback Russell Wilson found receiver Courtland Sutton, who made a high jump touchdown catch in the back of the end zone with 1:03 left, to take a 21-20 lead.
• After a failed 2-point attempt, the Vikings needed a field goal on the subsequent drive to win the game. On fourth-and-25 with 16 seconds left, Minnesota quarterback Josh Dobbs threw an incomplete pass, turning the ball over on downs and ending the game.
• Wilson finished 27-of-35 passing for 259 yards and a touchdown. Dobbs, meanwhile, was 20-of-32 passing for 221 yards, one touchdown and one interception.
• The Broncos won their fourth-straight game, improving to 5-5 on the season. The Vikings fall to 6-5.

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The early portion of a Minnesota Vikings practice is fairly mundane. A boombox blasts hip-hop. Players jog from inside the TCO Performance Center out onto the grass. After they stretch, they scatter across the fields for warmup drills.

One of the drills practices maintaining possession of the ball. Skill players caress the football tightly and weave around objects that look like traffic cones. A couple of coaches, meanwhile, attempt to jar the football from their grasp.

Silly as the simulation may be, head coach Kevin O’Connell believes it matters. A life in football frames his perspective that turnovers win and lose games. They may happen randomly. They may not be the sexiest of coaching subjects. But they are so often the difference between a celebratory locker room and this.

Following the Vikings’ 21-20 loss Sunday to the Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High, quarterback Josh Dobbs wiggled out of his white jersey while staring into his locker. Eye black was smeared down right tackle Brian O’Neill’s face as he unstrapped his shoulder pads. Then there was running back Alexander Mattison, hunched over in a seat, grass stains visible on the back of his uniform.

Read more here.

ourtland Sutton had no problem shaking off the contact from Minnesota Vikings defensive back Mekhi Blackmon as he hauled in a game-winning 15-yard touchdown pass from Russell Wilson on Sunday night.

Surviving the hit from his own teammate proved to be the bigger challenge.

“You see my reaction?” wide receiver Jerry Jeudy said after the Denver Broncos’ 21-20 win over the Vikings. “I damn near almost broke my dog’s neck. I was so excited, man.”

After Sutton caught the touchdown pass that gave the Broncos the lead with 63 seconds left, washing away a night of offensive frustration, Jeudy jumped on Sutton’s back, nearly pulling his teammate down in the celebratory chaos. Sutton stumbled backward for a minute, but he didn’t fall.

He and the Broncos are still standing. With seven games left, they will reach Thanksgiving very much alive in the race for an AFC playoff spot. It’s a possibility that becomes more realistic by the week, growing like the belief in Denver’s locker room that this four-game winning streak is only the start of a special run.

Read more here.

Don't miss out on The Athletic Football Show, where Nate Tice and Robert Mays are breaking down all of today's action right now.

Watch here.

The Broncos take the lead on a 15-yard touchdown pass from Russell Wilson to Courtland Sutton.

Denver entered the drive having had one possession gain more than 50 yards and the Broncos went 75 yards in 10 plays to take the lead.

If the score holds, it will mark Wilson’s 31st career regular-season fourth-quarter comeback, tying John Elway for the ninth-most since 1950, per Stathead.

Courtland Sutton with ANOTHER red zone touchdown. Went up and got it.

No. 14 has had a night.

The Broncos are 1-11 in their last 12 games in which they trailed by five or more points in the fourth quarter.

Denver’s only such win over that span came in Week 4 against the Bears (trailed 28-14, won 31-28).

Greg Joseph extends the Vikings’ lead with a 30-yard field goal, the seventh combined field goal for the two teams tonight.

It’s the 10th game with seven or more combined field goals this season and Denver and Minnesota have been involved in three of them:

• Tonight against each other
• Broncos Week 5 vs. Jets
• Vikings Week 9 at Falcons

Facing fourth-and-4 from their own 31-yard line, the Vikings, leading 17-15 with 9:24 remaining, lined up to punt the ball back to the Broncos.

But Kevin O'Connell called for a direct snap to running back Ty Chandler, who rumbled largely untouched for a gain of 31. After another fourth-down conversion, Minnesota drove into the Denver red zone, but they stalled there and kicked a field goal to go up 20-15. The Broncos now need a touchdown to win.

After the Denver took over at the Minnesota 9-yard line, Flores' unit gets another red zone stop. On third-and-goal, the Vikings brought the house, then Joejuan Williams broke up Russell Wilson's pass to Jerry Jeudy.

A gigantic play from a dude who hasn't played all year. Which is kind of just what this team does.

The Broncos have three takeaways and the good news is each of them led to Denver points. The bad news is all three led to field goals. The last of which after Jerry Jeudy couldn't corral Russell Wilson's third-down pass in the end zone.

Kicker Wil Lutz has five FGs and has accounted for all 15 Broncos points tonight.

Back-to-back takeaways for the Broncos, this one an interception by Ja’Quan McMillian.

Denver converted its first two turnovers into field goals and now it takes over at the Vikings’ 9-yard line.

Forcing turnovers has been a key to the Broncos going on a three-game winning streak. Alexander Mattison’s fumble was the 11th turnover Denver has forced in the past three games. The Athletic's Nick Kosmider has more about this surge in defense.

Read here.

The Broncos go three-and-out again, their third of the game, and fall to 0-for-7 on third down.

Denver had converted 42.2 percent of third downs during its three-game win streak, 11th in the NFL since Week 7.

Joshua Dobbs extends the Vikings’ lead on a 10-yard scramble touchdown. Dating back to his final start with the Cardinals, Dobbs has now thrown AND rushed for touchdowns in four-straight games, the longest active streak in the NFL.

His three-straight games with passing and rushing scores to begin his time in Minnesota are the most by a player to begin his career with a team in NFL history, per NBC.

The Vikings quarterback leads his team down the field with rocket-scientist-like precision — thanks to an 18-yard completion to Jordan Addison and an obvious 19-yard pass-interference call — and finishes it off with a 10-yard scramble for a touchdown.

Dobbs, who hasn't yet been with the Vikings for three weeks, leads the team in rushing touchdowns with three.

Five.

That’s how many carries Denver had in the opening 30 minutes, all of them by running back Javonte Williams for a total of 16 yards. The Broncos built a three-game winning streak on a running attack that has been more efficient over the past month, but they never had a chance to lean on the backfield.

Denver picked up only one first down among its first three drives and went three-and-out on two of those. The Broncos added to late field goals with the help of a couple deep throws from quarterback Russell Wilson, who had 132 yards passing in the first half.

But if Denver is going to gain control of this game in the second half, they need to find some rhythm in the ground game.

The Vikings' run game, and the Broncos ability to apply pressure on Josh Dobbs. Minnesota running backs Alexander Mattison and Ty Chandler combined for 80 yards in that first half. Only three times this season have Vikings back finished the game with 80 yards rushing.

Simultaneously, the Broncos have recorded five quarterback hurries in that first half. Their pressure has prevented Dobbs from attempting to move the ball into the intermediate and deep areas of the field. The 10-9 lead is a byproduct of a red-zone back and forth.

Minnesota has forced two Broncos field goals in the red zone, while the Vikings punched in one trip for a touchdown and another for a field goal.

The Broncos drove 46 yards in 1:11 and closed the half with a 52-yard field goal by Wil Lutz, his third of the half.

Lutz has now made three first-half field goals in three of his last four games, something he’d done only three previous times in his six-year career.

After the Vikings took a 10-3 lead, the Broncos answer with their longest drive of the game (63 yards) and add another Wil Lutz field goal.

Lutz has now made multiple field goals in four straight and eight of 10 games this season.