The first five plays weren't pretty. Three-and-out on the opening drive. Two incompletions to start the second. The Mile High crowd was getting nervous, you could feel it through the broadcast.
Then Jarrett Stidham did exactly what Sean Payton said he'd do. He ripped it.
A 52-yard strike to Marvin Mims down the right sideline. Perfect ball, perfect catch, Patriots secondary caught flat-footed. Two plays later, Stidham found Courtland Sutton for six yards and Denver's first points. The Broncos lead 7-0 over New England in the AFC Championship, and suddenly all that "biggest home underdog in conference championship history" talk feels premature.
Look, I get it. Stidham hadn't thrown a pass in a real game since 2023. He's making his first start of the season in a conference championship, something that hasn't happened since 1972. Vegas made the Broncos 5.5-point underdogs at home. Every talking head spent the week saying Denver's season was over when Bo Nix broke his ankle.
But here's the thing about narratives: they don't play football.
Payton told reporters Friday that he wasn't worried about Stidham at all. "I'm worried about everyone else, and how we play," the Broncos coach said. That's either supreme confidence or masterful deflection. Right now, it looks like confidence.
Stidham himself stayed weirdly calm all week. "I know how I can play," he said Wednesday. "I know the kind of guys I've got around me and the kind of team that we have." The guy who spent the season telling teammates he sees Nix more than he sees his own kids was ready when his number got called.
There's a subplot here that makes this fascinating. Stidham was a fourth-round pick of the Patriots in 2019. He spent his rookie year learning behind Tom Brady. David Andrews, the former New England center, told NBC News that Stidham absorbed everything he could from Brady during that overlap. Now he's on the opposite sideline, trying to end his old team's Super Bowl hopes.
The Patriots, to their credit, didn't trash talk their former backup. Defensive playcaller Zak Kuhr said Thursday that Stidham "could be the starter for a number of teams." Mike Vrabel's defense has been nasty this postseason, six sacks against Herbert, four picks against Stroud. They came in expecting to feast on a rusty backup.
The Mims catch changed the math. That's a 23-year-old receiver who had a quiet regular season, just 37 catches for 322 yards. But Payton loves calling plays designed specifically for Mims when the moment matters. Last week against Buffalo, Payton pulled him aside before the game and told him they were running a specific route because Mims had beaten Pat Surtain II on it in practice.
"We cannot finish this game with me not having called that play," Payton said after the Bills win.
Same energy today. Payton knows his weapons. Stidham knows the playbook. The crowd at Empower Field knows this might be the weirdest path to a Super Bowl anyone's seen in years.
It's early. The Patriots have Drake Maye, who threw three touchdowns against Houston last week. Rhamondre Stevenson has been punishing defenders all postseason. New England isn't going anywhere quietly.
But Payton promised Broncos fans they'd have two weeks of rest after this game. Kayshon Boutte fired back that Denver could "rest in Cancun."
Right now, the scoreboard says otherwise.