5 winners and 2 losers from Broncos' blowout win over Cardinals in Week 7

The Denver Broncos improved to 5-2 after a blowout 30-16 win over the Arizona Cardinals in Week 7. This Broncos team doesn't blow a lot of teams out, so seeing the complementary football and the team doing well in all three phases was a real treat.

Even though this wasn't the biggest game of the season, it was a really important one as the offense desperately needed to get on track this season after too many slow starts and sluggish performances.

We have a lot to unpack from this game, including the most important development of all: The return of Bo Nix.

Biggest winners and losers from Broncos' Week 7 win vs. Cardinals

Bo Nix, QB -- Winner

It hasn't been the best season so far for Broncos quarterback Bo Nix. That was pretty common knowledge going into Week 7, and Nix himself admitted that he needed to play better.

Maybe it wasn't a perfect game from Nix against the Arizona Cardinals, but he came out firing and showed off his wheels on a 62-yard touchdown run, the longest touchdown runf ever for a Broncos quarterback.

It was on this play that everyone in Broncos Country knew: Bo Nix is back.

Nix proved once and for all that there should be no more questions about his surgically repaired ankle, but more importantly, this was a huge mental hurdle for him to clear. He hasn't been playing like this for the entire season. We've seen it in certain spots, but Nix had been toeing the line of playing "smart" and playing "scared".

He did more than just run the ball well in this game, too. Nix was throwing downfield confidently and had the highest average depth of target (ADOT) for any QB in the NFL in Week 7. Maybe that will silence the critics, at least for a week.

Jonah Coleman, RB -- Winner

Rookie running back Jonah Coleman has now been a significant part of the offensive gameplan for the Broncos' two best offensive performances of the season so far (Week 2 vs. Jaguars; Week 7 vs. Cardinals).

Coincidence? I think not.

Coleman had 9 carries for 54 yards in this game, and he also added a pair of reception for 15 yards while playing 50 percent of the offensive snaps. That last detail is significant considering RJ Harvey played 25 percent of the offensive snaps, and JK Dobbins played 21 percent.

More on that later.

The big news here is that Coleman returned, and he looked good. He was showing his patience, vision, ability to create yardage after contact, and explosiveness. Especially contrasting with what we've seen this year from Dobbins, Coleman was impressive.

Malcolm Roach, DL -- Winner

Malcolm Roach had a whopping 4 quarterback hits against Jacoby Brissett and the Arizona Cardinals in Week 7.

I would say that's unprecedented, but he literally did the exact same thing last week against Sam Darnold.

Roach is racking up the QB hits these days, and showing his evolution as a playmaker on the interior defensive line. He's always been known more for his ability to help against the run, but Roach has become a truly disruptive force on the interior defensive line.

Nik Bonitto, OLB -- Winner

The stat sheet doesn't show much that would seem overly impressive for Nik Bonitto on the surface. He finished the game against the Cardinals with just 1 tackle and 1 QB hit, but his impact went so far beyond the traditional stats.

Bonitto managed to rack up an absolutely ridiculous 13 QB pressures on his own. He has been absolutely locked in since the Broncos' game against the Chargers in Week 5.

Alex Singleton, LB -- Winner

You have to give credit where it's due, and Alex Singleton has been phenomenal for the Broncos' defense for at least a month, if not longer.

The NFL's leader in tackles just continued to create some distance in that category with another 19 tackles against the Arizona Cardinals. It's simply absurd at this point.

While Singleton was on everyone's bad side after all of the missed tackles in Week 1 against the Chiefs, he's been all over the field lately, and has been doing a much better job of attacking the line of scrimmage and making big plays to stop the run and get after the quarterback.

Riley Moss, CB -- Loser

Even though he was called for the most egregious pass interference of his NFL career so far (and that's saying something), Riley Moss still continues to have a tough go of it out there after returning from his preseason rib injury.

Moss has been outplayed over the last handful of weeks by Jahdae Barron and even Kris Abrams-Draine. Re-inserting him into the lineup didn't seem to be the right move for the Broncos, who probably need to consider the idea that Moss is going to have to take a backseat to one of those guys if he makes anymore 'business decisions' in the run game.

JK Dobbins, RB -- Loser

There might not be a bigger "loser" from this game than JK Dobbins. Dobbins not only averaged under 4 yards per carry (again), but he ended up playing the fewest snaps (21 percent) of any Broncos running back.

After the game, Dobbins allagedly told reporters that he was "unavailable" for the media after the win, which is a pretty off-putting stance to take given how porrly he's played. Dobbins is an emotional guy and probably just doesn't want to say something he might regret, but he'll have to face the music at some point.

The RB1 position is clearly slipping away from Dobbins, whose involvement compared to Jonah Coleman is a pretty significant concern at this point. He appears to be on the outside looking in at the RB circle of trust.

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