Bo Nix’s season ended on a run for a 2-yard loss in overtime against the Bills. He stayed in the game for two more plays despite a fractured ankle.
Nix, though, will not play again this season.
The Broncos placed Nix on injured reserve on Saturday, making official the premature end of his season. Jarrett Stidham will start the AFC Championship Game on Sunday.
The Broncos used the roster spot to activate starting center Luke Wattenberg from injured reserve. He is expected to start against the Patriots.
Wattenberg went on injured reserve on Christmas Day with a shoulder injury and missed three games and the required four weeks. He had started the first 15 games, playing every snap, before his injury.
The Broncos also elevated receivers Elijah Moore and Michael Bandy from the practice squad for Sunday’s game. It is an indication that Troy Franklin, the team’s second-leading receiver, won’t play.
Franklin is listed as questionable with a hamstring injury.
The Patriots activated wide receiver Mack Hollins from injured reserve on Saturday, the team announced.
Hollins returned to practice on Thursday as a limited participant before being a full participant on Friday. He was listed as questionable but will return after missing the past four games with an abdominal injury.
The Patriots placed defensive tackle Eric Gregory on injured reserve in a corresponding move, ending Gregory’s season.
Running back Terrell Jennings (concussion protocol) and defensive tackle Joshua Farmer (hamstring) will remain on injured reserve. But the Patriots did elevate running back D’Ernest Johnson and defensive end Leonard Taylor III from the practice squad for Sunday’s game against the Broncos.
Hollins caught 46 passes for 550 yards and two touchdowns in the regular season and is a strong run blocker.
The Patriot Way could be coming to Sin City.
Several weeks after a rumor made the rounds of Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores (as head coach) and former Giants head coach Brian Daboll (as offensive coordinator) taking their talents to Las Vegas, it’s possible that Daboll will be the one who gets the gig.
Via multiple reports, the Raiders have interviewed Daboll for the team’s head-coaching vacancy.
Daboll had two separate stints with the Patriots during Raiders minority owner Tom Brady’s time in New England. A defensive assistant in 2000 and 2001, Daboll became the receivers coach from 2002 through 2006. He returned as tight ends coach from 2013 to 2016. In all, Daboll won five Super Bowl rings there.
The Flores possibility fizzled. The reasons for that aren’t clear. One explanation could be related to the blunt comments recently offered by former Vikings assistant coach Mike Pettine.
Daboll recently interviewed with the Bills, too. Some regard him as a favorite there, given his past work with quarterback Josh Allen, during Daboll’s four years as offensive coordinator, from 2018 to 2021.
On Sunday, the New England Patriots will play in the AFC Championship for the 16th time.
That ties them for the second most appearances since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, with the Steelers. The 49ers, who fell one game short last weekend of their 20th NFC title game, lead the way with 19.
New England has an 11-4 record in conference championships. That’s the second-highest winning percentage for teams with more than five appearances. (The Giants are a perfect 5-0.)
The highest winning percentage for teams with more than five conference championship games is New England’s opponent on Sunday. The Broncos, who’ll be playing in their 11th AFC Championship, are 8-2.
New England has been to 14 conference championship games since 1996. Which dovetails nicely with the Cowboys, who went to 14 post-merger conference championship games before 1996. In the 30 years since then, the Cowboys have zero.
The only teams who haven’t been to at least one since 1996 are the Dolphins (1992) and the Browns (1989) — if, of course, we ignore that the franchise that was the Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Ravens, which have been there five times since 1996.
The Texans, who lost to the Patriots last Sunday, are the only NFL team to never play for the right to play in the Super Bowl.
In the crazy haze of job openings and playoff preparations, some things don’t get noticed when they’re published. Here’s one from two weeks ago that merits a mention.
Patriots receiver Kayshon Boutte, who’ll play in Sunday’s AFC Championship, is only three years removed from a serious gambling addiction.
Boutte shared his story in an item posted on ThePlayersTribune.com.
“I’d wake up early in the morning, and the first thing I’d do was bet,” Boutte wrote. “I’d stay up late and bet. All day. All night. I had insomnia, so if I woke up in the middle of the night, phone next to the bed, I’d bet. Any little money I had, it was going straight to FanDuel.”
At the time, he was a 20-year-old athlete at LSU.
“I knew I was addicted,” Boutte wrote. “When you lose, and you’re an addict, there’s this voice in the back of your mind like, No, no, no…… I gotta get my money back. I GOTTA get it back.”
He kept going due to the unrealistic fantasy, sold by ubiquitous advertising, that a big payday is there to be had.
"[E]ven when you win, it’s never enough — you aren’t satisfied just winning $1,000,” Boutte wrote. “Don’t get me wrong, a bag is nice. But nobody gambles for that kind of money. Gambling is about the dream. Everybody’s dream is to go to the casino and hit for $100K … $300K … $500K. And a lot of gamblers think that if they quit, it would end up being right before their biggest hit, before they would have tripled up on some parlay. 10x, 20x. Why not? That could be me. That’s the mindset that always kept me hanging on. What if I do quit, but one day, I would’ve hit this, and we’da been on a boat somewhere, living off it?”
As Boutte explained it, the same thing that drove him to strive for a pro football career kept him going with gambling.
“It’s sad when I think about how, as a kid, my ability to dream was an asset,” he wrote. “That’s what got me to LSU, and later, all the way to the NFL. But as a gambling addict, my dreaming was my biggest liability. It was like my own mind was working against me. Nobody was forcing me, I wasn’t being hustled. I didn’t even have nobody to be mad at but myself. I was digging my own grave. Then one day, I shoveled that last little bit of dirt over my head — I had nothing left. I gambled until I was completely broke. When it was all said and done, I put in around $90,000 of my own money, and lost it all.”
Boutte said he started gambling as a way to replace the sense of competition he lost after suffering an injury at LSU.
Boutte was eventually arrested for underage gambling. (The charges were later dropped.)
“I know there’s more stories like mine out there,” he wrote. “Betting is just gonna keep getting bigger and bigger. Gambling is what it is. I’m not here to preach. It’s going to exist. But people who are in a dark place, they’re gonna use it to escape. Athletes, especially. I’m telling you, because I lived it.”
He has a final message for those who’ll see the inevitable stories about players getting in trouble for gambling.
“Just remember that there’s a person behind that headline. When you ask yourself, ‘How could they do something like that? How could they risk it all? What were they thinking?’ . . . The sad part is, they weren’t thinking. They were going through something. Don’t give up on them. . . . Maybe they just need some help.”
He’s right. Gone are the days of having to go find a bookie in order to place a bet. Gambling is everywhere. It’s quick and it’s easy to get started. For many, it’s hard to stop.
Especially for those who thrive on competition and who suddenly have lost that ability to try to get the rush that comes from a win. When it comes to gambling, the more likely outcome for most who do it is that they’ll eventually lose. And many will lose big.
