EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ – Faster than you can say double check on discounts, we’ll find out if the Broncos will spend the rest of this football season chasing a playoff spot or wishing for CU Buffaloes phenom Travis Hunter in the next one NFL draft.

The outcome of Denver’s trip to the Jersey swamps against quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets seems more important than the difference between the 2-2 and 1-3 record.

It’s the turning point of Year 2 of the story being written by coach Sean Payton in Broncos Country.

Should Denver upset the Jets, who are established as formidable eight-point favorites at home, Bo and the Broncos will make waves around the league as one of this year’s most pleasant surprises in professional football.

Losses, as the Las Vegas bookmakers fully expect from the visitors, and it’s back to serious work from Payton on a rebuilding project that could really use a playmaker of Hunter’s generational talent.

Here’s the odds for the first signature win of the Payton-Nix partnership in Broncos Country.

At 40, Rodgers may not be what he used to be. It’s been 13 years since he won his only Super Bowl ring with Green Bay and three seasons since he claimed his fourth MVP award en route to being enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Heck, State Farm even benched Rodgers as “Mr. Discount Double-Check,” a position he held for twelve years on behalf of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

But for Nix, who made his first start at quarterback for Scottsboro High School in Alabama a decade ago when Rodgers was at the height of his MVP powers in the NFL, this is a chance to take on a legend.

“It’s pretty surreal,” Nix said. “I grew up watching him make all his cool plays for so long, and over time I’ve watched a lot of his highlights, and so it’s crazy that I get to go out there and play against him.”

Try as we might, no one in Broncos Country can forget that Rodgers would follow in Peyton Manning’s footsteps and end his career in Denver. But a trade with Green Bay fell apart in 2022, leaving us with nothing but Nathaniel Hackett, who looked hopelessly lost as a play-caller without Rodgers turning those X’s and O’s into magic.

Yes, it was impressive that a Denver defense that gave up a whopping 70 points on the Fourth Sunday of September 2023 in Florida turned around and shut down Baker Mayfield in Tampa Bay, limiting the Bucs to seven points a little over a year later.

But now it’s our old friend Hackett who can provide a real litmus test for measuring how much these Broncos have really grown.

Without Rodgers, who was felled by a torn Achilles in the opening minutes of the 2023 season, a Jets offense coordinated by Hackett and quarterbacked by Zach Wilson, now the No. 3 signal caller in Denver, lost 31 points to the Broncos last fall.

Long-suffering fans in Broncos Country were denied the pleasure of watching Nix and Payton earn appreciation when they looked clumsy in the home opener, losing 13-6 to Pittsburgh while injured quarterback Russell Wilson watched the Steelers beat his former teammates .

Beat the Jets, touted as Super Bowl contenders with a healthy Rodgers, and all the talk of Denver as a changed team would have meaning. Would it be too much to suggest that this could be the Broncos’ most important road win since December 2018, when 157 yards rushing by Phillip Lindsay led them to a 24-10 win, pushing their record to 6-6 and a glimmer of play-offs became possible? hope before four consecutive season-ending losses resulted in the firing of coach Vance Joseph?

The Jets will give Denver a chance to show that the Broncos are playing serious football again.

“We’re going to have to play our best game,” Payton said. “These guys are good.”

A loss would be nothing more than the same old, grimacing disappointment that Broncomaniacs have come to expect over the past eight years.

With a 1-3 record, it wouldn’t be too early to wait for next year.

And the conversation about refueling for Travis could begin.