Ex-Broncos, Patriots receiver thinks Bo Nix, Drake Maye will have many duels

The snow, at least, was new this year. There were no hints of any flurries back in 2013, when New England marched into Denver in the AFC title game. There were clear skies two years later, too, when the Broncos found themselves again having to duel Tom Brady for a shot at the Super Bowl.

Denver and New England’s whiteout matchup in the AFC Championship in 2025, though, brought back several degrees of recent history. Back to the days of Brady, and Peyton Manning, and the last time the stands at Empower Field rocked as loudly as they did this winter. Back to a Broncos group that knew quite well, as ex-Denver running back C.J. Anderson recalled, who they’d have to go through in the AFC to get to a Lombardi Trophy.

“It’s interesting to see like — it’s them two at the top of the apex,” Anderson told The Denver Post this week. “I think for us, it was like, we knew that we were going to run into Ben (Roethlisberger). Or we were going to run into Brady.”

History has repeated itself, a decade later. These Broncos have thrust their Super Bowl window wide open after a 2025 season where they came three points and a blizzard away from a trip to the Super Bowl last Sunday. They built a team to climb over the Chiefs and the Patrick Mahomes hump. They built a team to climb over the Bills and the Josh Allen hump.

Now, though, they’ll have to build for a future where they can topple the Patriots, a similarly young team that also employs a culture-changing head coach and a second-year quarterback still on his rookie deal.

“Denver’s a great team,” Patriots receiver Trent Sherfield said, sitting at his locker Sunday after New England’s loss to Seattle in the Super Bowl. “This team’s a great team. Like, you’re in the first year of a rebuild, and you get to the Super Bowl.”

“So,” Sherfield continued, “it’s gon’ be real competitive.”

Sherfield, of course, saw both franchises’ ascent firsthand in 2025, after spending half the year as the Broncos’ fifth wide receiver and the end of the season on New England’s practice squad. He sees a future where Denver and New England — who both went 14-3 in 2025 — will have to go through each other, once again. And where quarterbacks Bo Nix and Drake Maye go head-to-head across the future playoff runs.

“I think Bo’s arm talent, being able to run the ball, extend plays, turn a bad play into a good one — I think they have a lot in common,” Sherfield said. “I feel like that’s gonna be, probably, an AFC Championship for a couple of years. Kinda like how Patrick Mahomes is always in it.I think that those two will be going at each other for a long time.”

Of course, the two quarterbacks have yet to actually face off in their NFL careers, after Nix’s fractured ankle heard ’round the world. And several Broncos made it quite publicly known that they believed they should’ve been in the Bay Area if a couple of factors had broken differently, as the Seahawks  dominated the Patriots from kickoff to triple zeroes in a 29-13 win.

“This game is making me even more sick to my stomach that we lost,” safety P.J. Locke tweeted last Sunday. “‘Cry me a river?’ Yes I am! Lol.”