Mark Kiszla: Beat Aaron Rodgers, and rookie quarterback Bo Nix can declare the Broncos are back as a serious NFL team

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Faster than you can say discount double-check, we will discover whether the Broncos will spend the remainder of this football season chasing a playoff spot or wishing for CU Buffaloes phenom Travis Hunter in the next NFL draft.

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

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

Should Denver upset the Jets, established as daunting eight-point favorites on their home turf, Bo and the Broncos will be all the buzz around the league as one of this year’s most pleasant surprises in pro football.

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

Here is the opportunity for the first signature win of the partnership between Payton and Nix in Broncos Country.

At age 40, maybe Rodgers ain’t what he used to be. It has been 13 years since he won his only Super Bowl ring with Green Bay and three seasons since claiming his fourth MVP award on his way to enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Heck, State Farm has even benched Rodgers as “Mr. Discount Double-Check,” a position he held for a dozen years, in favor 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, here’s a chance to beat a legend.

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

Try as we might, nobody in Broncos Country can forget Rodgers was supposed to follow in the footsteps of Peyton Manning and finish his career in Denver. But a trade with Green Bay fell apart in 2022, leaving us with nothing except 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 surrendered a humiliating 70 points in Florida during the fourth Sunday in September of 2023 turned around and punked Baker Mayfield in Tampa Bay, limiting the Bucs to seven points, one short year later.

But now it’s our old buddy Hackett who can provide a real litmus test to measure how much these Broncos have truly grown.

Without Rodgers, felled in the opening minutes of the 2023 season by a torn Achilles, a Jets offense coordinated by Hackett and quarterbacked by Zach Wilson, now the No. 3 signal-caller in Denver, dropped 31 points on the Broncos last autumn.

The long-suffering fans in Broncos Country were denied the pleasure of watching Nix and Payton earn validation when they looked inept in the home-opener, losing 13-6 to Pittsburgh, as 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 about Denver being a changed team would hold meaning. Would it be too much to suggest this could be the Broncos’ most significant road victory since December 2018, when 157 yards rushing by Phillip Lindsay led them to a 24-10 win, pushing their record to 6-6 and allowing a glimmer of playoff hope before four straight losses to end the season resulted in the dismissal of coach Vance Joseph?

The Jets will give Denver a chance to make a statement that serious football is again being played by the Broncos.

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

A loss would be nothing more than more of the same old, grin-and-bear-it disappointment that Broncomaniacs have come to expect for the past eight years.

With a record of 1-3, it wouldn’t be too soon to start waiting for next year.

And the talk of tanking for Travis could begin.