DENVER — The play that completed arguably the most improbable fourth-quarter comeback in Denver Broncos history began a day earlier, after Courtland Sutton made his way up to head coach Sean Payton’s office at the team’s practice facility.

“If we get into this situation,” Payton told the veteran receiver, “I’ve got a play and it’s going to work.”

The film was queued up as Sutton sat down. Payton kept flipping through the same sequences of opponents, trying to exploit the New York Giants defense in hurry-up situations. The plays Payton showed Sutton, the receiver said, weren’t exactly the same as the one the Broncos wanted to execute if a perfect situation arose, “but it was the concept and idea of what he envisioned.”

Payton certainly could not have envisioned all that came before the f

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