If fans inside Broncos Country want to have a good trivia question for their friends going into the 2025 season, here's one: Name the last head coach and starting quarterback combination to be with the Broncos in back-to-back seasons.
The answer may not be the first one that comes to mind, because it hasn't happened since 2014. This season, the Denver Broncos will have Sean Payton and Bo Nix back as the head coach and starting quarterback. Believe it or not, the last pair to do that for the Broncos was John Fox and Peyton Manning in 2014.
The Broncos have an incredible list of failures in between that time.
2013- Fox/Manning
2014- Fox/Manning
2015- Gary Kubiak/Manning
2016- Kubiak/Trevor Siemian
2017 - Vance Joseph/Siemian
2018- Joseph/Case Keenum
2019- Vic Fangio/Joe Flacco
2020- Fangio/Drew Lock
2021- Fangio/Teddy Bridgewater
2022- Nathaniel Hackett/Russell Wilson
2023- Payton/Wilson
2024- Payton/Nix
2025- Payton/Nix
That is hard to believe when you read that list from top to bottom, but it represents a couple of things. For one, it shows the ineptitude that the franchise dealt with for over a decade, and secondly, it points to another lasting failure that Payton has turned around.
Interestingly, Fox was fired after the 2014 season, despite winning the AFC West in each of his four seasons as the team's head coach. A loss to the Indianapolis Colts in the divisional playoffs that year led to the infamous "kicking and screaming" quote from then-general manager John Elway.
The Broncos are hoping that the combination of Payton and Nix is here to stay for much more than just two seasons. With the way things are going, that not only looks possible, it looks likely.
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