Bo Nix is taking Broncos on a wild ride, but is it sustainable?

LANDOVER, Md. — Sunday night marked Sean Payton’s 305th game, including playoffs, as an NFL head coach. It also marked a first. When Talanoa Hufanga broke up a fourth-down pass in overtime, Payton removed the communication pack that allows him to talk to his quarterback from his pocket, another heart-pounding win seemingly secured.

But there was a flag. Hufanga had arrived early trying to defend Zach Ertz. Payton, for the first time in his storied career, had to put the device back in his pocket. The drive continued.

The Broncos were destined to do battle again until the bitter — or, for many times for Denver this year, beautiful — end.

On and on it went. Marcus Mariota found Terry McLaurin for a fourth-down touchdown, and suddenly, the Commanders were within one point and going for two.

Mariota dropped back. Jeremy McNichols ran wide open into the flat. The ball never got there: Nik Bonitto, flying in unblocked on a blitz, tipped the pass away. The Broncos had held on for ninth straight win, seven of which have been decided by four points or fewer, all of which they’ve trailed at some point. It’s the longest winning streak in which a team has trailed in every game in NFL history.

“You do begin to believe it’s gonna happen,” coach Sean Payton said. “But there can’t be that false belief. I mean, there has to be that preparation and corrections so that the next week is better.”

Moments earlier, Bo Nix had done it again, leading another game-winning drive. As the Broncos barrel toward their first AFC West title in a decade, they’re doing so following in the image of their quarterback: some ups, some downs, a lot of moxie and even more wins. At 10-2, Denver is off to its best 12-game start since 2015, when it won the Super Bowl, and is currently the No. 1 seed in the AFC.

Sunday night, Nix made the plays that keep both his own coach and opposing defensive coordinators up at night. The second-year quarterback finished 29 for 45 for 321 yards, one touchdown and one interception. The journey to get those numbers was a winding one.

The touchdown could lead any Week 13 highlight reel. The second-year quarterback stepped up in the pocket, and with Preston Smith pulling him down by his right leg and Javon Kinlaw bearing down on his left, delivered an 11-yard strike to Courtland Sutton.

“From my perspective, it kind of feels like you’re floating for a second,” Nix said. “… In a game like that, we literally talked about game of inches, but it really is, comes down to an inch or two every once in a while.”

Various teammates lauded it as “incredible” and “amazing” and “really impressive.” Left tackle Garett Bolles couldn’t even choose an expletive.

“Bo, man, shit damn. I mean, he was just slinging the ball.”

The miscues could make any lowlight reel. Early in the fourth quarter, Nix threw a perfect pass … if it had been intended for Washington linebacker Bobby Wagner, who made an easy interception to set the hosts up in scoring range.

That play epitomized a fourth quarter — normally the quarter Nix and his team dominate — in which he averaged just 2.9 yards per pass and the Broncos’ offensive drives resulted in an interception and three punts. Washington took advantage and forced overtime.

And then the roller coaster had another turn: Nix leading a five-play, 76-yard breeze of a touchdown drive, with Nix going 4 for 4 for 71 yards.

“He just has a dog mentality, man,” Bolles said. “No moment or situation fazes the kid. He just has some serious swag. When it’s time to score, it’s time to score, and he does his thing. It’s like he gets some Hulk juice at halftime or something and just turns green or something. I don’t know what it is. It’s crazy. I love him.”

“When it’s time to score, it’s time to score,” is perhaps the best way to explain Nix’s exploits in key situations. He now has an NFL-high six game-winning drives this season.

He’s somehow a poised Hulk — if one ever existed — in the huddle.

“Bo is cool, calm and collected,” Harvey said. “He’s never under pressure. He’s calm, and I’m just grateful to have him as my quarterback.”

Harvey, taking on a larger role since J.K. Dobbins’ foot injury, scored two touchdowns, including the game-winner. Though the yardage total — 35 yards on 13 carries — underscores a ground attack that has struggled since Dobbins’ injury, Nix pointed to Harvey’s contributions on the game-winning drive.

“R.J. had a great first catch to get it going, he had a great pickup on the next play, block pickup, and then he gets the ball in the end zone, and it is pretty impressive,” Nix said. “Really good drive for a rookie. He had no back down in his face and looked really confident, looked really good.”

It was a nice change for a team has often leaned on its defense to pull out close ones.

“They bailed us out of so many games the last couple weeks, and it was our time to do what we needed to do to score and put the defense in a great situation,” Bolles said.

It’s also indicative of a team that keeps finding different ways and different heroes. Bonitto and Harvey this week. Ja’Quan McMillian — who sacked Patrick Mahomes twice and picked him off once — in a key win over the Chiefs in Week 11. Wil Lutz several times; when you’re in so many close games, you’d better have a good kicker.

“It’s been the special teams, it’s been offense, it’s been defense,” linebacker Alex Singleton said. “We’re able to hang our hat in each room. Playing a complete game would be nice for four quarters, but that’s not how this league works, so to just continue to find ways to win is important.”

Nix remains at the center of it all, though, and he holds the keys to the Broncos’ potential playoff run, one that has long eluded the franchise. Denver hasn’t won a playoff game since Super Bowl 50 nearly a decade ago.

So all the numbers of new expectations — every 10-2 Broncos team has made the Super Bowl, for example — of close wins, of game-winning drives?

“They’re just a stat,” Nix said. “They have nothing to do with the football game. They can’t grow legs and go out there and score touchdowns for you.

” … This is not where we wanted to be. We didn’t want to be 10-2. We didn’t want to get to December and be 10-2. Our goal was to make a deep playoff run, and we’re clearly not there yet. We haven’t even had time to get there yet. So we’re going to continue to battle, continue to fight.”

There are peripherals that belie a 10-2 team, underlying issues that could come into play. Nix’s inconsistency is one. Living in the tiniest of margins is not for the faint of heart. Then again, neither is the NFL.

“Pick a Super Bowl team — and I say that respectfully — and then go look at that season,” Payton said. “I mean, look at it honestly. … You begin to build some momentum. Yeah, there’s some things you want to clean up, but just take a peek at any one of them. Every once in a while you get one of those teams that just rolls right through it all, but this is a tough league.”

Again, it will come back to Nix. Denver’s outstanding defense will keep it in almost any game; Denver is 4-1 this season when scoring 20 points or fewer. The rest of the NFL, for what it’s worth, is 26-124. Nix has has mystifying stretches of poor play, moments as low as his highs are high.

Whether it’s unsustainable smoke and mirrors — fittingly, the Broncos had a smoke machine going in the locker room to celebrate the win — or an ability to get the only outcome that matters will be determined when the stakes are raised in the weeks to come.

“We don’t escape,” Payton said. “We won.”