LAS VEGAS — Courtland Sutton thought he needed a thesaurus.

His smile said something different.

The Broncos wide receiver couldn’t think of an adjective to describe beating the hated division rival Las Vegas Raiders for the first time in his career, but he didn’t need one.

His reaction – a big, knowing, competitive, relieved grin – got the whole message across.

That this team really exists.

That this team fully believes in the powers of rookie quarterback Bo Nix.

That perhaps this team’s past sins may finally be in the past.

“The tide is turning,” Sutton said after catching eight passes for 97 yards and two touchdowns in the second half in a 29-19 victory that was uglier than the stated score and sweeter than Sutton or anyone else in the locker room of the Broncos could fully express.

“The elite teams, 17 games into the regular season, are really going to be ready for 13 or 14 of those games, and the teams that aren’t are still going to find a way to win,” head coach Sean Payton said. “They may lose some, but they still find a way. I told them today, ‘Our team from a year ago is not going to win this game.’

“But this team does.”

Payton believes that for a variety of reasons — he quickly tried to wrap up a follow-up on why and said he wasn’t speaking ill of the 2023 team — but it starts with the quarterback.

Nix has been checking the boxes one game at a time in recent weeks.

This was, perhaps for the first time, a game the Broncos won because they had him.

In the season opener a year ago, Russell Wilson had two sacks and didn’t handle the Raiders’ pressure well, including on a key sequence in the red zone early in the fourth quarter. The Broncos lost.

In the 2023 season finale, Jarrett Stidham was sacked five times and turned the ball over. The Broncos lost.

On Sunday, the Raiders emptied the tank in an attempt to confuse Nix. They zeroed him out on the first snap of the game and three times on the first drive.

They overwhelmed the Broncos, but couldn’t make it pay.

By the time the game ended, Nix had only been sacked once in 44 drop backs.

“It’s all learning,” Payton said. “You can only do so many things in the simulator and then you suddenly think: ‘This is what happened today.’ Both of us. They had a few corners out and so we go from expecting a lot of zone coverage to zero pressure.

“We played with it a few times in the second half and we made enough plays.”

Nix made multiple free-charging Maxx Crosby misses.

He softened the impact of a pair of Mike McGlinchey penalty holders by throwing darts through the center of the field.

He didn’t apply pressure as the Broncos offense settled for field goals early and trailed 13-9 at halftime. Instead, the rookie quarterback and his head coach rummaged around, found the right tools in their growing collection and wrested control of the game back into their hands.

“It was a complete team win, very resilient from our guys,” Nix said. “We never lost that lead. We never lost confidence on the sidelines and we always thought we would find a way to win and that is exactly what characterizes a good team.”

Of course, this team also has a defense that is consistently good, rather than a defense like last year that experienced a turnover bonus midway through the season.

For the second time in as many games against the Raiders, an interception turned the tide.

Of course, in Week 5, Pat Surtain II’s 100-yard pick-six turned a potential 17-3 deficit into a 10-all game.

On Sunday, Brandon Jones took an overthrow from Gardner Minshew — forced by Jonathon Cooper’s pressure — and ran it back 37 yards to set up the offense in the red zone.

That proved to be a spark for both sides of the ball.

“Turnovers kill games,” Nix said after the Broncos won the battle 2-0. “You can’t turn the ball over and expect to win. We did well to force turnovers and his return put us in the red zone. When you don’t have to drive the entire length of the field and you are placed in the red zone, it makes it a lot easier.

“Momentum is really a thing in this game, it’s very important, and then we scored and I thought, ‘Okay, this is our time to take over.’

“We did that after that.”

Payton’s team now clearly believes it belongs in the AFC conversation. It trickled down from Sutton after the game. He said the Broncos have a lot of players “who are desperate, but not in a bad way” looking for success.

If desperate is the adjective Sutton is going for, it’s channeled despair.

This group isn’t swinging wildly to catch it.