Thursday Night Football highlights: Broncos defeat Saints 33-10 in Sean Payton's return to New Orleans

It’s Broncos 33, Saints 3 after a 52-yard return for a touchdown by Cody Barton, the Broncos linebacker. Officially, the play is ruled a fumble return.

Willie Gay Jr. rips the ball out of the grip of Broncos running back Audric Estime with 6 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, giving the Saints a glimmer of hope in starting a rally.

Both Denver and New Orleans have nine drives tonight. That is where the similarities end.

Yards per play: Denver 6.6, New Orleans 4.3

Total yards: Denver 379, New Orleans 195

Rushing yards: Denver 215, New Orleans 62

Red zone: Denver 2-3, New Orleans 0-1

After Spencer Rattler was pressured by edge rushers on three consecutive plays, a fourth consecutive drive this half ends in a punt for the Saints. In all, the drive lasted seven yards and mustered 16 plays. Rattler has been sacked four times, while Nix has been kept clean by his offensive line.

Denver remains in the lead, 26-3, with 13:29 remaining in the fourth quarter, but was stopped and forced to punt on its last drive. This game now becomes a math problem: There are only realistically three, and perhaps four, drives left for the Saints. If they don’t convert here and jump-start a comeback, a rally appears difficult.

What has happened to the Saints’ defense this season? One week after allowing 51 to Tampa Bay, New Orleans has now allowed 25 points to a Denver team that has scored more points than that just twice this season. A designed run for 32 yards set up a touchdown run by Javonte Williams. Nix now has a season-high 73 rushing yards.

It’s Broncos 26, Saints 3 with 5:53 to go in the third quarter.

Wil Lutz, have a night! The Broncos kicker is now 4-for-4 after a 38-yard field goal. His single-game career-high is five, from 2023. This is the 12th time in Lutz’s career he’s started 4-for-4.

More offense. Denver’s own offense has been efficient tonight but isn’t explosive. With the Saints’ defense difficult to trust to get stops, it’s up to Spencer Rattler to manufacture points. But that is already proving difficult, after a brief drive to open the third quarter ends with a third punt.

Bo Nix has 134 passing yards and 41 more on the ground at halftime. On the other side, Spencer Rattler has completed 10 of his 13 passes for 90 yards, with 28 rushing yards.

Wil Lutz makes his third field goal of the first half, this time from 52 yards, with 16 seconds to play before halftime. Ultimately, the dropped interception by New Orleans earlier in the drive would have prevented three points. In some games, that might be a tiny amount, but given New Orleans’s offensive struggles, it feels like a bigger gap than usual.

Tyrann Mathieu, the hometown defensive back, dropped a harmless pass that should have easily been intercepted and would have given New Orleans a short field to sneak in a few more points before halftime. Instead, Mathieu dropped the pass from Bo Nix.

New Orleans scores its first points with 1:57 left in the first half after an 11-play drive that lasted 5:33. If you’re New Orleans, the encouraging thing is that quarterback Spencer Rattler appears to be finding a groove, going 4-for-4 on the drive, not including a 28-yard scramble.

With Bo Nix already surpassing 100 yards passing still seven minutes before halftime, he could be on pace to set a career-high. So far, that stands at 246, which he produced in Week 2.

Denver’s offense has struggled mightily to generate many yards or points this season thanks to Nix’s rookie learning curve and the lack of skill-position difference-makers around him. But tonight is an opportunity for the offense.

New Orleans just allowed 51 points last week and missed numerous tackles in the process. Denver has a chance to finally gain some momentum, and so far they’ve been the much better team after Javonte Williams rushes in for a short touchdown run. Williams already has 59 yards on eight carries.

The game has paused as trainers tend to Paulson Adebo, a cornerback for New Orleans. The Saints cannot afford much more attrition, given they were already missing their starting quarterback and two best receivers tonight.

Gifted a second chance to extend their drive thanks to the penalty on Denver, the Saints lasted five more plays before punting to end their latest drive. Don’t write off the Saints yet. After a similarly poor start last week, they scored 27 points in the second quarter against Tampa Bay. Still, this isn’t promising from the Saints.

That sound you heard was a huge sigh of relief from New Orleans. Instead of allowing a touchdown off a fumble by Spencer Rattler, the play didn’t count because of an offside penalty on Denver. Truly an enormous swing of events in a game where the margin between these teams is slim.

After driving down to the Saints’ 13-yard line, and failing to draw the Saints offside on fourth down and short, Denver kicks its second field goal of the night, this one from 32 yards. Will Lutz is now 2-2 with kicks of 32 and 46.

Denver ends the opening quarter still driving while up, 3-0. Bo Nix is 7-for-10 for 54 yards so far and the Broncos have added 55 yards on the ground.

Denver gets its 23rd sack — second-best in the NFL this season — when Cody Barton comes from Spencer Rattler’s blind side and forces a fumble just as the ball was leaving his hand. Denver is going to take over near midfield. In this game, with a pair of uneven rookie quarterbacks, favorable field position is going to take on even more importance than usual, and Denver just caught a break.

With 5:28 left in the first quarter, Denver scores after a nine-play, 52-yard second drive. Nix was 4-for-4 passing on the drive and looked much more comfortable with getting his feet set. That seems to be a key for his accuracy.

The first New Orleans drive showcased the full rookie-quarterback experience. Spencer Rattler connected on a 32-yard completion on his first snap, but then misread coverage and nearly had a pass intercepted two plays later. The Saints punt, giving Nix another chance.

The Broncos quarterback Bo Nix missed tight end Lucas Krull who was wide open on first down, then misfired on a roll-out pass on second down. Facing third-and-10, Nix threw off his back feet to beat Saints pressure but his pass fell short. Denver will punt, and the Broncos punt more than any other team this season.

Marvin Mims returns the opening kickoff for Denver, and the Broncos will start their first possession. Can Bo Nix be an explosive passer tonight? It’s been a challenge all season for him.

Brees, who led the franchise to its only Super Bowl, was honored prior to the matchup.

New Orleans scored more than 44 points in each win while allowing a total of 29 points during 2-0 start. Since then, they are averaging just 19 points per game during the four-game losing streak while allowing an average of 29.5 points per game.

Taysom Hill has not played since Week 3 with fractured ribs. Hill is listed as a TE but is 7-2 in nine career starts at QB. He has not started a game at QB since the 2021 season and has not attempted a pass this season.

Juwan Johnson will start at tight end on Thursday night.

Rattler, who was a fifth-round pick out of South Carolina in the 2024 NFL Draft, had been inactive for each of the first five games this season (as the emergency third QB). The 24-year- old played five years in college, spending three seasons at Oklahoma (2019-2021) and the last two seasons at South Carolina (2022-2023).

Last season at South Carolina, Rattler went 5-7 in 12 starts, throwing 19 TD passes and 8 interceptions. His best collegiate season came in 2020 as a redshirt freshman at Oklahoma, when he led the Big 12 in passing yards (3,031) and passing TD (28).

In his debut last week against Tampa Bay, Rattler threw for 243 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions.

The Broncos rookie QB, after an 0-2 start, has six touchdowns and and only one interception over the last four weeks. He had three scoring drives in the fourth quarter of a comeback attempt (that fell short) against the Chargers last Sunday.

He says he is happy with his progression so far.

“I do see the progress, but I still see some that I’m leaving out there,” Nix said Tuesday. “It’s a happy medium — a fine line of both — feeling like I am making strides, but, at the same time, there’s things I continue to go back and watch that I know I’m capable of doing. It’s good to see the progress and the strides, but I’m not where I want to be at yet.”

Sean Payton returns to New Orleans to face the Saints for the first time since leaving the team after the 2021 season. Payton coached the Saints for 15 seasons from 2006-2021 (he was suspended for the entire 2012 season after the Bountygate scandal). He led New Orleans to seven division titles, nine playoff appearances and one Super Bowl, winning Super Bowl XLIV in the 2009 season (the Saints’ first and only Super Bowl appearance).

He is the winningest head coach in Saints franchise history (161-97 record including playoffs: .624 win%).

The Saints started 2-0 while scoring at a record pace, although the offense has fallen off as New Orleans has now lost three straight games. They are set to be without QB Derek Carr (oblique) for multiple weeks, with rookie Spencer Rattler in line to make his first career start in Week 6.